U.S. military officials confirmed Thursday that a guard at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay last January fired a "non-lethal round" to disperse detainees after one of them sought to climb a fence and others threw rocks at the guard tower.

No one was injured during the incident, which appears to be the first shooting involving rubber bullets in the 11-year history of the Guantanamo facility. Nonetheless, it has fueled claims by defense lawyers – denied by camp officials – that the  detainees have been engaged for weeks in widespread protests, including hunger strikes and refusing to sleep in their cells.

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The conflicting claims about conditions come as the detention facility in Cuba – which began under President George Bush in 2002 – is once again in the spotlight. Congressional Republicans, led by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, on Thursday sharply criticized the Obama administration for flying the recently captured Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son in law, to New York to stand trial in federal court rather than sending him to Guantanamo.

Al-Qaida spokesman and bin Laden son-in-law captured

“When it comes to people like this ... we want them to go to Gitmo to be held in military custody for interrogation purposes," Graham said in a news conference.

But Obama administration officials say they have ruled out sending any more terror suspects to Guantanamo because it would undercut their intention to shut down the facility. On his first full day in office in January 2009, President Barack Obama vowed to close Guantanamo, but he has been blocked from doing so by Congress, leaving most of the 166 detainees remaining there in perpetual limbo – even though at least 55 of them have been publicly cleared for release by an administration task force consisting of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The shooting incident, first reported by the Miami Herald, occurred on the grounds of a new $744,000 soccer and recreation field that was opened last year and touted by base officials as an example of new and more permissive conditions at the facility. The new soccer field was featured in an NBC News report on Guantanamo last June.

Read more at The Isikoff Files

Navy Capt. Robert Durand, chief public affairs spokesman at Guantanamo, told NBC News in an email that on the afternoon of Jan. 2, the incident occurred "after a detainee attempted to climb the fence" in the new recreation field and a "small crowd of detainees began throwing rocks at the guard tower."

"After repeated warnings were ignored, the guard force was forced to employ appropriate crowd-dispersal measures, in accordance with standard operating procedures," Durand wrote.

In response to follow-up questions, Durand said that the measures involved the shooting of a "non-lethal round" consisting of "several small rubber balls with limited ability to penetrate skin and little ability to cause injury." One of these balls "hit a detainee," he added. (During a May 2006 disturbance at Guantanamo, guards fired pepper spray at detainees, Durand said.) 

Information only began to emerge in recent weeks when some of the detainees began informing their lawyers – whose communications with their clients are tightly regulated. One detainee, Bashir al-Marwalah, wrote his New York lawyers in a letter received  Feb. 22: "We are in danger. One of the soldiers fired on one of the brothers a month ago. Before that, they send the emergency forces with M-16 weapons into one of the brothers' cell blocks."

The letter, a copy and translation of which was obtained by NBC News,  further alleged that a copy of the Quran had been "desecrated" during a search the day before and that guards were going from "cell block to cell block" and taking away detainee possessions.

"Now they want to return us to the darkest days under Bush. They said this to us. Please do something." the letter stated. It then concluded: "We asked that this be announced to the media so that people know what the Obama administration is doing to prisoners now. All the brothers are now on a hunger strike in protest of mistreatment and the desecration of the Quran."

The claims in the letter have been echoed in the last few days by lawyers for other detainees , who have said their clients have told them about large-scale  hunger strikes – with some detainees "losing consciousness" and "coughing up blood."  The claims of widespread hunger strikes have been vigorously denied by Guantanamo officials, who say there are now seven who are doing so – about the same number as have for the past year. 

Pardiss Kebriaei, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said she spoke to one of her clients, Ghaleb Al-Bihani, also a Yemeni, by phone this week and he said he has refused food for a month.  "He's dropped 23 pounds, he’s a diabetic, and medical staff have told him his life is in danger," Kebriaei said. 

Kebriaei said her client told her that there is now a "mass hunger strike" in Camp 6 – the largest and most permissive of the camps at Guantanamo – and that all but two detainees are participating. In addition, she said,  the detainees are protesting in other ways – by refusing to sleep in their cells, instead taking their mats outside and sleeping there. The trigger for the protests appears to be new restrictions and more comprehensive searches of cell blocks  imposed by the new camp commander, Rear Adm. John Smith.

Durand, the Guantanamo spokesman, disputed the lawyers' claims across the board.

“In broad terms, what we are seeing is a coordinated effort by detainees and their attorneys to take routine camp events and create a false picture of conditions," he wrote in an email. "Every day, to some degree, there are a few hunger strikers, a few detainees who assault or threaten guards. To describe the current conditions in the camp as 'deteriorating' is patently false."

He added: "Detainees, their attorneys, family members and sympathetic organizations routinely attempt to gain sympathy for detainees in the media by initiating and spreading falsehoods regarding conditions of detention, allegations of abuse by guards, denial of medical treatment, abuse of the Quran and reports of mass unrest or hunger striking. These tactics have been employed off and on since Joint Task Force Guantanamo opened in 2002."

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A United Nations panel has called on Cuba to immediately release jailed American contractor Alan Gross after finding that his detention was “arbitrary” and violated international human-rights standards, according to a report obtained by NBC News.

The 16-page decision by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which has not yet been publicly released, is a  victory for the legal team working to free Gross, a State Department contractor who was arrested three years ago for allegedly smuggling sophisticated satellite equipment to Cuba’s tiny Jewish community.

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The Cuban Foreign Ministry dismissed the findings as a result of “pressures exerted by the United States” and vigorously defended its detention of the 63-year-old American. Gross “was sentenced for committing acts against Cuba’s national security and public order, not for promoting freedom,” the ministry said in a statement also obtained by NBC News. A Cuban official said that the working group reached its findings without visiting Cuba or interviewing Gross. The official also noted that the same U.N. panel has in the past criticized as “arbitrary” the detention of five Cuban agents prosecuted in the U.S. on espionage related charges.

Gross’ imprisonment and the 15-year prison sentence imposed on him last year by a Cuban court has become a new flashpoint in U.S.-Cuba relations. Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a unanimous resolution calling for Gross’ immediate release. The dispute over his detention has been further heightened by assertions by Gross’ family that he has lost over 100 pounds in prison and that his health is failing. 

The working group, an arm of the Geneva-based U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, conducted its investigation in response to a petition submitted by Gross’ lawyers. Its findings can now be  submitted to the U.N. General Assembly and, if adopted, put further international pressure on Cuba over its treatment of the jailed American. A spokesman for the High Commissioner did not respond to a request for comment.

According to lawsuit he recently filed against the U.S. Government and the contractor that employed him, Gross has charged he was a “pawn” in a larger U.S. government program to change Cuba’s government and was never advised about the dangers he faced. (The State Department has declined comment; the contractor, Development Alternatives Inc., has said only that Gross’ release is its “highest priority.” ) Gross made five trips to Cuba between March 30, 2009 and November 2009, delivering telecommunications equipment that he said was designed to “increase Internet access in Cuba,” according to the lawsuit.

The  U.N. panel’s report found that Gross’ detention near the end of his fifth trip was “arbitrary”  and that  he was tried and  convicted after a two-day trial by a Cuban court that did not operate in an “independent and impartial” manner. It  further found that he was charged under a Cuban law – prohibiting “acts against the independence and/or territorial integrity of the state” – that was too vague by international standards. The panel also concluded that  Gross should have been released on bail during the 14 months between his arrest and his conviction by the Cuban court.

“On those grounds, the Working Group requests the Government of the Republic of Cuba order the immediate release of Mr. Alan Phillip Gross,” the report states.

Chris Fletcher, a lawyer for Gross, said in an email: “If what is being reported is accurately quoted from the U.N. Working Group opinion, then it reaffirms what we said previously: the government of Cuba is violating its international legal obligations. It should therefore immediately release Alan Gross from prison and allow him to return to the United States to be reunited with his family.  Moreover, regardless of the outcome of the case, Alan’s health is declining and it has long been clear he should be immediately released on humanitarian grounds.”

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In its response to the U.N. report, the Cuban Foreign Ministry condemned the United Nations working group for its “hasty” analysis. 

“Mr. Gross was detained, prosecuted and sentenced for illegally and covertly introducing in Cuba communication equipment using non-commercial technology, which is only meant to be used for military purposes and for creating clandestine networks.” He did so to implement a U.S. government program “with the aim of subverting Cuba’s constitutional order," to overthrow the Cuban government, the foreign ministry statement said. 

A senior Cuban official, Ricardo Alarcon, recently told NBC News that the Cubans would consider releasing Gross, but want the U.S. government to take similar “humanitarian” steps by releasing the so-called Cuban Five, the convicted Cuban agents in the U.S. whose prosecution the U.N. had also criticized. 

Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent.

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HAVANA -- A Cuban official on Wednesday accused the U.S. government of “lying” about the health of Alan Gross, an American contractor serving a 15-year prison sentence here, in an effort to force his release. 

Denying speculation that the 63-year-old Gross has cancer or is otherwise in poor health, Foreign Ministry official Josefina Vidal said at a press conference in the Cuban capital that the 63-year-old American has "been treated decently and well in prison.”

She also stated that “his health has "not deteriorated" and that he "speaks regularly with friends and family."

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"Gross has been seen by the most qualified Cuban medical specialists," Vidal said. "The U.S. government is lying to suggest that he has cancer and that he is not receiving adequate treatment." If these lies continue, she said, "Cuba will present new evidence that shows Gross is not sick."

Vidal’s statement came in response to increasing pressure from the U.S. government and lawmakers to release Gross, who was convicted in 2009 of "acts against the independence and/or territorial integrity of the state” for  distributing telecommunications equipment to Cuba’s tiny Jewish community.

At the time, Gross was in Cuba on a  tourist visa, working  for Development Alternatives, Inc., a State Department contractor, as an "independent business and economic development consultant" under an $8.6 million contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The court that convicted him described the effort as an effort to subvert the Cuban government.

“It was demonstrated that (Gross) illegally introduced telecommunications equipment in Cuba to create internal networks as part of a program of the government of the United States that aimed to promote destabilizing actions in the country and subvert Cuban constitutional order," it said at the time.

Since his imprisonment more than three years ago, Gross has lost more than 100 pounds and developed a mass on his right shoulder blade, which Cuban doctors diagnosed as a non-malignant hematoma that would be reabsorbed within a few months, according to Reuters.

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Gross’ wife, Judy, has been leading a public relations campaign in the United States for her husband’s release on humanitarian grounds. An American radiologist she consulted said last month that the mass had not been properly evaluated and speculated that it could be cancerous. The radiologist, Alan Cohen, said that Gross needed an urgent evaluation – and likely a biopsy of the mass – preferably at a facility in the United States.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday – the fourth anniversary of her husband’s imprisonment – Judy Gross said her husband “is frail, suffers from chronic pain ... and still doesn’t know whether he has cancer.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner sounded a similar theme on Monday.

“Mr. Gross has lost more than 100 pounds and suffers from severe degenerative arthritis that affects his mobility, and other health problems,” he said in a statement. “His family is anxious to evaluate whether he is receiving appropriate medical treatment, something that can best be determined by having a doctor of his own choosing examine him.”

While resisting calls to release Gross, Cuban officials have floated an alternative to resolve the impasse: They say they will free Gross if President Barack Obama agrees to release five Cuban spies held in the U.S.

The spies – known as the Cuban Five – are national heroes in Cuba as a result of their mission in the late 1990s to infiltrate  anti-Castro exile groups in South Florida that Havana suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside Cuba. They were convicted in Miami in June 2001 of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, acting as an agent of a foreign government, and other illegal activities.

Vidal referred to this scenario on Tuesday, reiterating “Cuba's willingness to immediately start talks with the U.S. government to find a humanitarian solution that is mutually beneficial to both parties." She also stated that her government would not make a "unilateral" move and release Gross because the "problem also belongs to the U.S." -- referring to the Cuban Five.

Gross himself pushed for a diplomatic solution in a meeting on Nov. 28 with Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba specialist from the National Security Archives in Washington.

"He’s angry, he’s frustrated, he’s dejected — and he wants his own government to step up" and negotiate, Kornbluh told NBC News last week. "His message is that the United States and Cuba have to sit down and have a dialogue without preconditions. … He told me that the first meeting should result in a non-belligerency pact being signed between the United States and Cuba."

Mary Murray is an NBC News producer; NBC National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff also contributed to this report.

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HAVANA, Cuba — Three years after he was arrested in Havana, jailed American contractor Alan Gross is asking the U.S. government to sign a "non-belligerency pact" with Cuba as a first step toward negotiating his release, according to a Cuba policy analyst who just visited him.

Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba specialist at the National Security Archives, a nonprofit research center in Washington, met with Gross for four hours on Wednesday at the military hospital in Havana where the contractor is being held. He said Gross appeared "extremely thin" — he has lost over 100 pounds since his arrest —and dispirited.

"He’s angry, he’s frustrated, he’s dejected — and he wants his own government to step up" and negotiate, said Kornbluh. "His message is that the United States and Cuba have to sit down and have a dialogue without preconditions. … He told me that the first meeting should result in a non-belligerency pact being signed between the United States and Cuba."

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Gross' comments appear to represent a new tack in an aggressive public relations campaign to win his freedom. His supporters have planned a candlelight vigil outside the Cuban interests section in Washington D.C., on Sunday and the U.S. Senate is poised to take up a resolution Monday demanding his release, Gross’ wife, Judy, has also become increasingly critical of the U.S. government for not doing more to demand that her 63-year-old husband be allowed to return home.

"He feels like a soldier in the field left to die," she said at a press conference in Washington last week.

Gross, who worked for an Agency for International Development contractor, was arrested by the Cubans on Dec. 3, 2009, and accused of smuggling sophisticated satellite and other telecommunications equipment into  the country to give to the island’s tiny Jewish community. Gross has said he was only trying to increase Internet access  in Cuba. But he was convicted by a Cuban court in March of last year for crimes "against the independence and territorial integrity of the state" and sentenced to 15 years.

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Slideshow: Castro through the years

Last month, Gross and his wife filed a $60 million lawsuit against the U.S. government and the contractor he was working for, Development Alternatives, charging he was used as a "pawn" in a U.S. government program to change the Castro regime and never advised about the dangers he faced bringing high tech satellite transmission equipment into Cuba. (The State Department, of which AID is a part and which has repeatedly called for Gross’ release, declined comment. Development Alternatives has released a statement saying it has "no higher priority" than bringing Gross home.) 

Kornbluh, who has advocated closer U.S.-Cuba dialogue, was in Havana last week to attend a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. He was granted permission to visit Gross by Cuban officials. (The Cubans so far have denied all news media requests to meet with him.) He said Gross was most upset about being unable to return home to see members of his family who are ill, especially his 90-year-old mother in Texas who has cancer.

"He really wants to see his mother, who is quite old and infirm,” said Kornbluh. When Kornbluh had his photo taken with Gross, the contractor held up a photo that read: “Hi Mom.” When he asked Gross what he wanted to get out of the lawsuit, the contractor replied: “I want to see my wife and I want to see my mother."

To accomplish that, Gross is seeking to nudge the Obama administration, according to Kornbluh. Gross knows that his freedom "is going to depend on his government negotiating in good faith with the Cubans," said Kornbluh. "His message to Barack Obama is: I’m fired up and ready to go. Where are you at this moment?"

Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent; NBC News producer Mary Murray also contributed to this report.

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HAVANA, Cuba — It seems straight out of a Cold War spy movie. A group of Cuban undercover agents sneak into the U.S. and set up a secret pro-Castro network in south Florida — receiving instructions in code through late night radio transmissions from handlers in Havana. But the FBI gets wind, tails the agents, intercepts their messages and busts them, sending the agents off to federal prison, their ringleader for life.

Today, the story of those spies — called La Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network — rolled up by the feds 14 years ago is barely known in the United States. But its members, now  known as the Cuban Five, are national heroes in Cuba — the subjects of mass demonstrations, their pictures on billboards and  posters – and their petitions for freedom are championed around the world by Nobel Prize winners, celebrities like Danny Glover, even former President Jimmy Carter.

And they may now prove key to the tense impasse between Havana and Washington over the fate of jailed American contractor Alan Gross, arrested three years ago Monday for distributing sophisticated satellite equipment to Cuba’s tiny Jewish community and later sentenced to 15 years in prison for "acts against the independence and/or territorial integrity of the state." (Gross says he was only bringing Internet access to Cuba.)

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While the U.S. is demanding that Cuba release Gross, who visitors say is angry and frail, having lost 110 pounds in prison, Cuban officials say they are willing to do so only if President Barack Obama will  release the Cuban agents.

"I understand what Mr. Gross is going through," Gerardo Hernandez, 47, the Cuban Five ringleader, said in an exclusive interview with NBC News in October at his current home --a federal prison outside Victorville, Calif. "I understand his sufferings and that of his family. … If an agreement can be reached, to stop the sufferings of six families, then I welcome it."

The idea of a swap — the release of Gross for Hernandez and his confederates among the Cuban Five — faces legal and political hurdles.

An Obama administration official told NBC News that the "imprisonment of Alan Gross, an international development worker, is not comparable in any way to that of the five Cuban agents," noting that the Cubans were afforded their "due process rights" and convicted of serious crimes.

Members of Congress have denounced Cuba for holding Gross "hostage" to the release of the Cuban Five. "The Castro regime has no regard for human rights or international law," said Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and frequent critic of the Castro regime. "The Cuba Five should serve their sentences for spying."

And Hernandez, who sports a trim goatee and displays a hearty laugh despite 14 years in prison,  might not make the ideal candidate for a pardon or commutation from Obama — a precondition for a swap to take place. Asked if he regretted any of his actions, he smiled and said,  "I regret that I got caught." In a follow up phone interview, Hernandez readily acknowledged that "we violated some U.S. laws" — mainly failing to register as foreign agents with the U.S. Justice Department. "We came here with fake passports. Fake identities."  But, he added, "We act out of necessity."

As Hernandez and Cuban officials tell it, the Cuban Five was not sent to spy on the U.S. government. In fact, the members weren’t accused of stealing any U.S. secrets (although they were convicted of conducting surveillance of U.S. military bases.) Instead, the mission of the Wasp Network, they say, was to infiltrate  anti-Castro exile groups in South Florida who Havana suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside Cuba. Among those attacks: the notorious bombing of Cubana Flight 455 over the Caribbean in 1976, killing 73 passengers (including teenage members of a Cuban  national fencing team)  as  well as a string of hotel bombings in Havana in  1997 that killed an Italian businessman and were believed to have been aimed at disrupting Cuba’s nascent tourist industry.   

"Cuba doesn’t have drones to neutralize the terrorists abroad," said Hernandez. "They need to send people to gather information and protect the Cuban people from these terrorist actions. … I think it’s the same feeling that Americans have that defend their country and love their country when they go to infiltrate al-Qaida and send information here to avoid the terrorist acts. And the U.S. has to understand that Cuba has been involved in the war against terrorism for 50 years.”

While admitting his role in spying on anti-Castro exiles — "I would do it again," he said — Hernandez adamantly denies the most serious charge against him: conspiracy to commit murder. His conviction on that count, which has earned him a life sentence, was based on his alleged complicity in the February 1996 shoot-down by a Cuban fighter jet of two Cessna planes flown by members of the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four men.

The anti-Castro group had provoked Cuba by dropping anti-government leaflets over Havana. At the trial of the Cuban Five, prosecutors introduced messages between Hernandez and his controllers in Havana suggesting he had prior knowledge of the shoot-down. But Hernandez insists that prosecutors misinterpreted the messages and he knew nothing that wasn’t already public.

"No, sir, absolutely not," Hernandez replied when asked if he knew in advance about the incident. "All I knew was what everybody knew: that Brothers to the Rescue through the years has violated many times Cuban air space, that there have been 16 diplomatic notes from Cuba complaining over that situation."

Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba’s National Assembly (the Parliament) and a longtime Castro confidante, said this week in Havana that "the Cuban government publicly, front page in our papers, months before that incident had warned that we are not going to allow any more intrusions into our air space. … The order, the decision (to shoot down the planes) came from the highest level. Fidel Castro himself had said that publicly, that he was responsible for that decision."

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Phyllis Kravitch of Atlanta concluded in 2008 that prosecutors never proved their case tying Hernandez to a plot to shoot down the planes, but she was outvoted two to one and his conviction on the murder conspiracy charge was upheld. Now Hernandez and his lawyers are appealing on another ground: that hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret  U.S. government payments to anti-Castro journalists in Miami — newly discovered through Freedom of Information Act requests — inflamed the Miami community against the Cuban Five and made it impossible for them for them to get a fair trial. The payments were mostly made for appearances on Radio Marti, a TV and radio operation funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent agency that oversees international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S. government.

Slideshow: Castro through the years

In court papers, lawyers for the Cuban Five have cited articles by some of the journalists, including one that denounced the "genocidal character" of Castro’s regime and another that speculated that the real purpose of the Wasp Network was to introduce "chemical or bacteriological weapons" into south Florida. “"his information was spread throughout the Miami area and helped inflame the community against these guys," said Martin Garbus, Hernandez’ lawyer. "It was total madness. … When the case was brought, the anti-Castro feeling in the Miami area was at a fevered pitch."

U.S. prosecutors dismiss as “implausible” and "unfounded" the idea that the Radio Marti payments were part of a U.S. government effort to influence the jury in the Cuban Five case.

 "The jury (in the case) was carefully selected, following a searching voir dire (jury selection process) that the appellate court deemed a high model for a high-profile case, and that the trial comported with the highest standards for fairness and professionalism,” wrote Caroline Heck Miller, an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, in a court filing in July asking a judge to reject Hernandez’ motion for a hearing into the payments to the journalists. She also noted, as federal prosecutors have repeatedly done when the issue has come up, that “no Cuban-Americans – the audience (Hernandez) hypothesizes as the target of the government campaign he imagines — served on the jury."

Unless Hernandez can somehow persuade a court to reopen his case  – or barring a prisoner swap with Gross — he would seem to have few options.

American imprisoned in Cuba may have cancer, doctor says

Rene Gonzalez, another member of the Cuban Five who was not convicted of the conspiracy-to-commit-murder charge, was released from federal prison on probation late last year, but has not yet been allowed to return home to Cuba to live.

The Cubans are doing their best to ratchet up the pressure. Just as Judy Gross has launched a public relations campaign in the United States to free her husband, appearing at a National Press Club press conference on Friday, this week the Cubans made Hernandez wife, Adriana, available for an interview with NBC News. A chemist in the food industry in Havana, she wept as she described the pain of separation from her husband — and how it has left her unable to bear children. "Every detail, every single moment reminds me of him," she said. "I believe there are many people in the U.S. and the American people as a whole, who could convey to President Obama that there is a woman here suffering."

Hernandez, too, says missing his wife is the hardest part of his life in prison. And he has few illusions about his prospects of being freed. "The only thing I know for sure with me is that I have two life sentences and live with that every day," he said. "And to keep your sanity and your mind, you have to be realistic. But I would be dishonest to say that I don’t have hope."

Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent; NBC News Producer Mary Murray also contributed to this report.

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