Factbox: American faces long sentence in Cuba case

(Reuters) - American Alan Gross has been sentenced to 15 years in jail in Cuba for working to set up clandestine Internet networks under a U.S. program outlawed on the communist-led island.

The United States has demanded his immediate release and his lawyer, Peter Kahn, said an appeal of the decision that followed a two-day trial last week would be explored.

Gross, 61, already has been imprisoned for 15 months. His daughter and mother have both been diagnosed with cancer since his arrest.

Some observers believe Cuba will release him early on humanitarian grounds but the government could hold him for a long time to send a message that the United States must stop activities it views as subversive.

The following are facts about the case, which has stalled progress in U.S.-Cuba relations:

* Gross, a longtime development worker who had worked around the world, was detained by Cuban authorities at a Havana hotel on December 3, 2009.

* The United States has said he was in Cuba installing Internet equipment for Jewish groups but the Cuban prosecutors said he was in a "subversive project" to "destroy the Revolution through use of infocommunications systems" and worked with a variety of groups.

* Cuba has described Gross as a "mercenary" in the ideological war between Washington and Havana that began at the height of the Cold War.

* Gross entered Cuba on a tourist visa so Havana was unaware he was working as a contractor for Maryland-based company DAI under a U.S. Agency for International Development program that Cuba considers part of long-standing U.S. plans to subvert the island's communist-led government.

* Cuba said in the trial Gross denounced DAI, telling the panel of judges it had "used and manipulated" him.

* Cuban prosecutors sought a 20-year sentence for Gross.

* U.S.-Cuba relations had warmed slightly under President Barack Obama but U.S. officials say there will be no major initiatives with its longtime ideological enemy as long as Gross is held.

* The White House called the sentence an injustice. A U.S. spokeswoman in Havana said it was "appalling that the Cuban government seeks to criminalize what most of the world deems normal, in this case access to information and technology."

* Gross has been held in a Havana military hospital where wife Judy Gross, who visited him last summer and attended his trial last week, said he has lost 90 pounds (41 kg) and has several physical ailments.

* She wrote a letter to President Raul Castro, expressing remorse for her husband's work and asking for his release due to their 26-year-old daughter cancer diagnosis. She recently said Gross' 88-year-old mother now has lung cancer.

* There were reports last summer that Washington may swap five Cuban agents jailed in the United States for Gross, but a State Department spokesman said in September that was not true.

(Additional reporting by Rosa Tania Valdes and Nelson Acosta; Editing by Bill Trott)