JTA — ABC News is reporting that the United States has secured the release of Alan Gross as part of a prisoner swap and wider effort to improve bilateral relations with Cuba.

Gross was leaving Cuba when he was arrested in December 2009 for setting up Internet access for the Jewish community there as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. He recently marked the completion of his fifth year in a Cuban prison.

Gross 65, of Potomac, Md., reportedly is in ill health and has lost more than 100 pounds since his incarceration, and has suffered from painful arthritis.