Fox News - US Often Powerless When Terror Groups, Rogue Regimes Hold Americans
By Perry Chiaramonte, FoxNews.com
Judy Gross lives just minutes away from the corridors of power in the mightiest nation in the world, but her husband is in a jail cell some 1,200 miles away and no one seems able to help.
Alan Gross, who was working for a U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractor as part of a U.S. government plan to increase Internet access in Cuba, was arrested in December 2009. The 65-year-old was convicted of spying and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and although he was on a U.S.-sanctioned mission, the State Department is unable -- or as Judy Gross charges, unwilling -- to win his freedom.
“It’s infuriating,” Judy Gross told FoxNews.com. “My first thought is that Alan is not home. So what are they [State Department] doing? It shouldn’t be that difficult.”. . .
Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law & Justice, which represents Abedini’s family, said Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken out for Abedini, but said more can be done behind the scenes. . . .