U.S. contractor worked for "secret services": Cuba

HAVANA (Reuters) - A U.S. contractor detained last month in Cuba for distributing satellite communications equipment to dissidents worked for American "secret services" and is being investigated, a top Cuban official said on Wednesday.

Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon shed no light on what the government plans to do with the prisoner, who President Raul Castro has cited as evidence that the United States continues its five-decade long campaign to subvert the island's communist system.

The man, arrested in early December, has never been publicly identified. U.S. diplomats were permitted to visit him on December 28, but they have provided little information about the meeting.

He worked for a Maryland-based company called Development Alternatives Inc. that said he was involved in a U.S. government program to strengthen civil society and promote democracy in Cuba.

"This is a man hired by a company that contracts for the American secret services and that is the object of investigation," Alarcon told reporters after a meeting of Cuba's National Election Commission.

He said the contractor was part of trend toward "privatization of war" by the United States, which hires people to be "agents, torturers, spies."

Asked if the prisoner was in good condition, Alarcon said, "I can assure you that he is much better -- much, much better -- than the victims of those contractors all over the world."

TURN FOR WORSE

The man's arrest comes as part of a turn for the worse in U.S.-Cuban relations, that had thawed slightly under Obama, who said he wanted a "new beginning" with Cuba after 50 years of hostilities that followed the island's 1959 revolution.

Cuban leaders who spoke well of Obama early in his presidency have begun to harshly criticize him for not moving faster to end the U.S. trade embargo against the island, imposed since 1962 to undermine the Cuban government.

President Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel Castro in 2008, referred to the arrested contractor in a December 21 speech to the National Assembly, saying it was evidence that despite Obama's hopeful words, "The enemy is as active as ever."

Cuba restricts satellite communications, including satellite television, because of fears they can be used against the government.

Cuba again signaled its anger with Washington on Tuesday, when it summoned the top U.S. diplomat in Havana to protest increased air security measures for U.S.-bound passengers from Cuba.

Cuba was one of 14 countries selected by the U.S. for extra security following the botched Christmas Day bombing of a Delta jet plane en route to Detroit by a Nigerian believed to be an al Qaeda operative.

Cuba is on a U.S. State Department list of countries considered "state sponsors of terrorism," which Cuban leaders have protested for years.

(Editing by Jeff Franks and Anthony Boadle)