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A Cuban intelligence agent who was imprisoned by the US for over 15 years expressed optimism on Thursday that Washington’s softening attitudes would lead to the release of three colleagues.
Fernando Gonzalez, who the Cuban government lauds as a national hero, said that one of the most positive signs he had seen was former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s statement in a recent book that she recommended that President Barack Obama end the decades-long US embargo.
Cuba has linked the case of its three agents to that of Alan Gross, a US government subcontractor who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for bringing sensitive technology into the country.
Havana has said repeatedly that it wants to negotiate with Washington over the fate of Mr Gross and the Cubans, who were arrested in 1998 and wrongly convicted on charges including espionage.
Cuba insists that they were only keeping tabs on exile groups that had been blamed for repeated terror attacks on the island.
Mr Gonzalez said that the current political context made him cautiously optimistic.
“There’s a growing interest in changing US policy toward Cuba,” he said.
“I would like to think that before finishing his term, President Obama would decide to improve relations with Latin America.
“That would involve a change with Cuba and that would necessarily take place through a solution to the case of my three imprisoned colleagues.”