161 Canadians have been arrested or detained for various periods in Cuba since 2005

Toronto Star

By: Julian Sher Staff Reporter, Juan O. Tamayo El Nuevo Herald/
When Sarkis Yacoubian walks into a courtroom in Havana Thursday to face serious corruption charges that could send him to prison for 12 years, the North York businessman will have a high-powered diplomat keeping a close eye on his trial — Canada’s ambassador to Cuba.

As the Toronto Star revealed last week, Yacoubian, who ran a successful $30 million transport and trading company called Tri-Star Caribbean, was handed a 63-page indictment by Cuban prosecutors in April accusing him of three counts of bribery, tax evasion and “activities damaging to the economy.”

After almost two years in custody without charges, Yacoubian’s fate will be decided by a panel of five judges in a hearing that is expected to last no longer than two days at the Criminal Court of the Peoples’ Tribunal for Havana Province.

Other jailed foreigners and diplomats are nervously watching to see how far the Cuban justice system, not known for its transparency or independence, will go in pursuing a case that has become an international political flashpoint.

In an apparent signal about just how seriously Ottawa views the case, the Department of Foreign Affairs this week informed Julian Falconer, Yacoubian’s lawyer in Canada, that Ambassador Matthew Levin will attend both days of the trial along with the Consul General at the embassy.

“It is very rare for the ambassador to show up in a courtroom,” said Gar Pardy, a former director general of consular services for Canada. “It sends a message to the Cuban authorities: this is a case of direct interest to the government of Canada.”

Levin had previously visited Yacoubian at least four times while he was in La Condesa prison on the outskirts of Havana.

Yacoubian was arrested in July 2011 as part of the Cuban Communist Party’s highly-charged political campaign against corruption.

A second GTA entrepreneur, Cy Tokmakjian, who runs a rival transportation firm, was arrested in September 2011 and remains in jail with no specific charges filed against him.

Yacoubian told the Star in a series of lengthy jailhouse phone interviews that he confessed and cooperated closely with his Cuban interrogators, pointing the finger at what he called the “bigger crooks” — a wide network of foreign companies engaged in widespread corruption and bribery.

“I just wanted to talk, I just wanted to tell them, to correct things,” he said.

Yacoubian said he had hoped that his close co-operation with the Cubans in exposing the web of corruption would help his case.

“I told them everything, I told how these schemes were done,” he said. “I was expecting anytime these things will clear up.”

But after nearly two years in detention, that has not happened.

“They expect me in court to say I am sorry and I will say that,” he said. “But I’m not going to lay quietly and be the victim.”

“Sarkis is ready for anything,” said Krikor Yacoubian, who has been in almost daily contact by phone with his brother. “Sarkis is a guinea pig. His trial will be a test of how Canada is going to react.”

Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Emma Welford told the Star Ottawa will not comment on the now very public case “to protect the privacy of the individual concerned.”

She said that 161 Canadians have been arrested or detained for various periods in Cuba since 2005, but she said the department did not know how many Canadians have ever faced trial there.

“The information is not captured,” she said.

A database search of news archives going back more than two decades found only two cases of publicly-known trials for Canadians, both of which involved allegations of sex crimes against minors.

Dr. Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami said Sarkis Yacoubian faces a justice system that is “capricious and authoritarian.”

“All the judges are appointed by the government, all the lawyers are on the government payroll or approved by the government,” he said. “So you are at the mercy of a very horrible political system.”

Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, said it was crucial for Canadian embassy officials to put on a strong show of force at trials of Canadians abroad, especially in countries like Cuba where “the issue of a fair trial is a serious concern.”

“It’s incredibly important to Canadians to be able to rely on an assurance that the Canadian government will be there for them, pressing relentlessly so that fundamental human rights requirements be complied with in any proceedings against them,” he said.

Certainly there will be political undertones to Yacoubian’s trial, given the shock waves the anti-corruption campaign and the resulting scandals have caused in Cuba and abroad.

Yacoubian’s case was in the hands of the powerful Agency for Investigating Crimes against the Security of the State.

In the past two years, more than a dozen Cuban officials and deputy ministers have been arrested and several of them convicted on various corruption-related charges.

In addition to the two Canadians, state authorities have jailed two British businessmen and detained several of the foreign employees of targeted Canadian and British firms — even though Cuban depends on foreign investment from friendly Western countries in the face of a punishing American economic blockade.

In the indictment, prosecutors charged Yacoubian and his employees “falsely claimed that they ran a great personal risk in doing business with our country and that their objective was to violate the criminal economic, financial and commercial blockade of the United States of America against Cuba . . . when in reality they were taking advantage of that cruel policy.”

Prosecutors allege Yacoubian or other employees bribed at least a dozen officials from a vast array of government departments and state enterprises — from the Ministries of Communications, Construction, Transportation and Tourism to the government’s telecommunications monopoly — for advance information on government purchases or to favour Tri-Star’s business.

Krikor Yacoubian says his brother will plead guilty to the charge of bribery, even though his brother insists he never initiated any payments but was forced to give money to Cuban officials to keep contracts he had already legitimately won.

“Sarkis never introduced payments in anyway,” said Krikor Yacoubian. “He had to pay.”

But he says his brother will “vehemently deny” the more serious counts of tax evasion and damage to the economy that could bring seven- and 12-year jail terms.

The Yacoubians have launched a Facebook campaign — which has garnered more than 400 supporters in a few days — to keep the case in the public spotlight.

Cuban authorities told the family that no media will be allowed into the courtroom.