Cuba starts trial of Canadian businessman in vice crackdown
Source: Agencies |
May 24, 2013, Friday
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THE trial of a Canadian businessman who has confessed to bribing Cuban officials began yesterday, almost two years after his arrest in a sweeping government crackdown on corruption.
The closed trial of 53-year-old Sarkis Yacoubian, the owner of import firm Tri-Star Caribbean, was expected to last two days. An associate of Yacoubian, Lebanese citizen Krikor Bayassalian, is a co-defendant.
The two men were brought into the courthouse, once a large home in Havana's 10th of October neighborhood, out of sight of the press, which was not allowed in to cover the proceedings.
The corruption trials of at least three other Canadian and British executives who were arrested shortly after Yacoubian was taken into custody in July 2011 are expected to follow.
The arrests were unprecedented for Cuba, where foreign businessmen suspected of corruption are usually deported, and are viewed as a measure of President Raul Castro's determination to clean up a vice he views as a threat to Cuba's socialist system.
After his arrest, Yacoubian quickly cooperated with prosecutors, confessing to bribery and implicating other foreign firms, which sparked an investigation into the country's import business.
Within months, dozens of Cuban officials and state purchasers were behind bars.
"I tried to explain to them (investigators) systematically how things could be done," Yacoubian told the Toronto Star last week in his only interview from jail.
"I gave them drawings, designs. I gave them names, people, how they do it, why, when, where, what," he said.
Yacoubian was expected to plead guilty to bribery, tax evasion and other crimes and could face a sentence of up to 12 years behind bars, the newspaper said. Bayassalian faces the same charges.
In September 2011, two months after Tri-Star Caribbean was shuttered, Canada-based Tokmakjian Group, one of the most important Western trading firms in Cuba, was closed and its 73-year-old head Cy Tokmakjian, also a Canadian citizen, was taken into custody.
More arrests
Yacoubian had worked for Tokmakjian before founding Tri-Star to compete with his former employer in what became a bitter rivalry for Cuba's automobile, motorized and heavy equipment market.
In October 2011, police also closed the Havana offices of the British investment and trading firm Coral Capital Group Ltd and arrested chief executive Amado Fakhre, a Lebanese-born British citizen.
Two months later police raided the offices of the powerful military-run Tecnotex trading company, taking its Cuban chief executive Fernando Noy away in handcuffs.
A video, shown to high-level Communist Party cadres in early 2012, featured Yacoubian's confession.
In the video, Yacoubian confessed to passing packets of money to Cuban officials visiting Canada when he worked for the Tokmakjian Group, then continuing the same practice after he founded Tri-Star Caribbean.
The closed trial of 53-year-old Sarkis Yacoubian, the owner of import firm Tri-Star Caribbean, was expected to last two days. An associate of Yacoubian, Lebanese citizen Krikor Bayassalian, is a co-defendant.
The two men were brought into the courthouse, once a large home in Havana's 10th of October neighborhood, out of sight of the press, which was not allowed in to cover the proceedings.
The corruption trials of at least three other Canadian and British executives who were arrested shortly after Yacoubian was taken into custody in July 2011 are expected to follow.
The arrests were unprecedented for Cuba, where foreign businessmen suspected of corruption are usually deported, and are viewed as a measure of President Raul Castro's determination to clean up a vice he views as a threat to Cuba's socialist system.
After his arrest, Yacoubian quickly cooperated with prosecutors, confessing to bribery and implicating other foreign firms, which sparked an investigation into the country's import business.
Within months, dozens of Cuban officials and state purchasers were behind bars.
"I tried to explain to them (investigators) systematically how things could be done," Yacoubian told the Toronto Star last week in his only interview from jail.
"I gave them drawings, designs. I gave them names, people, how they do it, why, when, where, what," he said.
Yacoubian was expected to plead guilty to bribery, tax evasion and other crimes and could face a sentence of up to 12 years behind bars, the newspaper said. Bayassalian faces the same charges.
In September 2011, two months after Tri-Star Caribbean was shuttered, Canada-based Tokmakjian Group, one of the most important Western trading firms in Cuba, was closed and its 73-year-old head Cy Tokmakjian, also a Canadian citizen, was taken into custody.
More arrests
Yacoubian had worked for Tokmakjian before founding Tri-Star to compete with his former employer in what became a bitter rivalry for Cuba's automobile, motorized and heavy equipment market.
In October 2011, police also closed the Havana offices of the British investment and trading firm Coral Capital Group Ltd and arrested chief executive Amado Fakhre, a Lebanese-born British citizen.
Two months later police raided the offices of the powerful military-run Tecnotex trading company, taking its Cuban chief executive Fernando Noy away in handcuffs.
A video, shown to high-level Communist Party cadres in early 2012, featured Yacoubian's confession.
In the video, Yacoubian confessed to passing packets of money to Cuban officials visiting Canada when he worked for the Tokmakjian Group, then continuing the same practice after he founded Tri-Star Caribbean.
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