American Alan Gross, a prisoner in Cuba for five years during the Obama administration, is accusing Bernie Sanders of commending the communist country when the senator came to visit him behind bars. Sanders visited Cuba as part of a congressional delegation in 2014, along with Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester.
During the one-hour meeting, Sanders told the prisoner that he didn't understand why others criticized Cuba, Gross said in an interview with NPR. "He said, quote: 'I don't know what's so wrong with this country,' " Gross recalled.
Gross, who now says he opposes Sanders' campaign for president, was arrested in December 2009 after completing a U.S. Agency for International Development subcontract. He was in Cuba working to expand Internet access to the country's small Jewish community, beyond the restrictive Internet regulations set by the Castro government. He spent 1,841 days in detention, during which he lost five teeth and over 100 pounds. He also said his interrogators threatened to pull out his fingernails and to hang him. "The first year of my captivity was akin to sensory deprivation because I saw about 20 minutes of sunlight during the first year," Gross said. The Obama administration and Gross' advocates said he was wrongfully convicted. He was ultimately released by Cuba in exchange for the U.S. government releasing three Cubans convicted of spying.
The congressional delegation visited Gross in Cuba in 2014 to press for his release. Gross said Heitkamp and Tester brought him a big bag of peanut M&M's, a memory that Gross remains fond of today because of his undernourishment at the time. Sanders brought an issue of The Atlantic magazine. Gross was also allowed to wear civilian clothes for the visit — a treat because normally he was allowed to wear only prison pajamas.
He said he had a pleasant conversation with Heitkamp and Tester, while Sanders remained mostly quiet for the duration of their one-hour meeting. "Senator Sanders didn't really engage much in the conversation," Gross said. But near the end, the Vermont senator offered a comment to the detained American, saying he didn't see what was so wrong with the country.
Gross, as a prisoner in that country, said he took offense to the remark. "I just think, you know, it was a stupid thing for him to do," Gross told NPR. "First, how could he not have seen the incredible deterioration of what was once the grandeur of the pre-Castro era. And two, how could be so insensitive to make that remark to a political hostage — me!"
