French man sentenced to 15 years in prison

Wall Street Journal (blog)

By Samuel Rubenfeld

A Cuban court sentenced a French man to 15 years in prison for money laundering connected to drug trafficking and tax evasion, AFP reported, citing sources close to the defendant.
Jean-Louis Autret, who has lived in Cuba since 1993, has 10 days to appeal. His wife was sentenced to five years in prison and four years of “correctional labor,” while seven Cubans have yet to be sentenced in the case, the defense source told AFP.
Autret was arrested in April 2009 after he sold a yacht to two French citizens in October 2004 that was stopped a year later by French and Spanish authorities, who discovered 2.8 tons of cocaine on board.
He cleared his name in the French courts, but Cuban authorities took him to court there, and prosecutors said at trial that Autret’s money laundering was part of “a cyclical movement of money between bank accounts in Cuba and abroad, aimed at hiding and legalizing” profits from “the illicit trade in narcotics.”
Autret’s lawyer said his client is innocent and called for his release.