US detainee in Cuba still under investigation

Havana, Jan 7 (IANS/EFE) An American detained in Cuba for alleged links with US secret services was still undergoing interrogation, an official said, adding the accused was not being mistreated.

“I can assure you that he is much better than the victims of those (US government) contractors around the world,” Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of the Cuban parliament, said here Wednesday.

He described the person in custody, whose name is being withheld, as “a gentleman hired by a firm that has contracts with the US secret services”.

“It’s a new constitution they have in the United States, that they are agents, torturers, spies who are hired in the privatisation of war,” Alarcon said.

The detainee was arrested Dec 5 for allegedly distributing cell phones, laptops and other communications gear among dissidents in the communist-ruled country.

On Dec 12, the US State Department had issued a statement about the arrest in Cuba of an employee of Development Alternatives Inc, characterised by The New York Times as a “kind of do-it-all development company that provides services to the US government in countries around the world.”

DAI refused to comment on what its employee was doing in Cuba.

Cuba’s first statement on the arrest came on Dec 20 when President Raul Castro said the State Department “euphemistically” referred to the detainee as a government contractor.

The DAI employee engaged in “the illegal supply of sophisticated communications equipment” to elements that Washington hopes will subvert Cuban society, Castro said.

–Indo-Asian News Service/EFE