capitolhillcubans
The Toronto Star and The Miami Herald have published an exclusive interview with one of the Canadian businessmen, Sarkis Yacoubian, imprisoned by the Castro regime.
It is a textbook example of the Castro brother's tactics.
It is a textbook example of the Castro brother's tactics.
Yacoubian has been clearly broken by the Castro regime, after being held in undisclosed locations and interrogated (and probably worse) for nearly two-years without charges or trial.
He's now serving as a ruse for one of the Castro brother's classic purgings, pointing his finger (better yet, having his finger pointed) horizontally -- but not straight to the top.
Yacoubian will plead guilty and play off Castro's script, hoping he will be allowed to return home soon.
Yet everyone knows that Yacoubian's business activities in totalitarian Cuba were conducted at the highest levels.
The closing quote says it all:
“Don’t be a hero,” Yacoubian says. “Heroes are so sad.”
Here are some excerpts from the story:
Speaking over a scratchy telephone line from inside a Cuban prison, Sarkis Yacoubian’s voice goes suddenly silent. He’s crying.
“I was so depressed at times, I wanted to commit suicide,” says the 53-year-old entrepreneur.
In exclusive interviews from the La Condesa prison, Yacoubian provides an insider’s view of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign by the government of Raúl Castro that has seen several foreign businessmen — including himself and another Toronto-area businessman — jailed.
A joint investigation by The Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald has found that in a corruption-plagued country described in secret U.S. government cables as “a state on the take,” the two jailed Canadians are embroiled in a high-stakes diplomatic and legal stand-off between Havana and Ottawa, potentially jeopardizing millions in taxpayer dollars that underwrite Canada’s trade with Cuba.
Arrested in July 2011 and detained for nearly two years without charges, Yacoubian, who ran a transport and trading company, was finally handed a 63-page indictment last month accusing him of bribery, tax evasion and “activities damaging to the economy.”
A suspect who says he quickly pointed the finger at widespread wrongdoing by other Canadian and foreign businesses, Yacoubian now faces up to 12 years in prison after he pleads guilty at his trial set to begin next Thursday. The charges were filed in a special Havana court for Crimes against the Security of the State, which can effectively hold trials in secret [...]
[T]heir Havana offices are shuttered, their fortunes frozen and their future in limbo.
Cuban authorities in Havana and at the country’s embassy in Ottawa declined to be interviewed for this story.
Complicating matters is that millions in Canadian taxpayer dollars funded by the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) — a kind of broker that underwrites contracts between the Cuban government and select Canadian firms — may be at stake [...]
Whisked away to a “safe house” for questioning and allowed outside for only one hour a day, Yacoubian says he slipped into desperation and depression. “I had lost my mind,” he says. “I was talking to myself, banging my head.”
Then Yacoubian made a fateful choice: He blew the whistle. “Maybe in my conscience I wanted my company to be brought down so that I could tell once for all things that are going on,” he says. “It was just eating me alive.”
He told his interrogators that he had little choice but to hand over money to bureaucrats or officials to secure contracts or even to ensure they were honored after winning a bid.
“If I didn’t pay, at the end of the day they would just create problems for me,” he says. Prosecutors allege in their court filing that Yacoubian or his employees bribed at least a dozen state officials with everything from nice dinners and prepaid phone cards to cash — $300 for a tip on a deal, $50,000 for a 2008 contract on earth movers.
He's now serving as a ruse for one of the Castro brother's classic purgings, pointing his finger (better yet, having his finger pointed) horizontally -- but not straight to the top.
Yacoubian will plead guilty and play off Castro's script, hoping he will be allowed to return home soon.
Yet everyone knows that Yacoubian's business activities in totalitarian Cuba were conducted at the highest levels.
The closing quote says it all:
“Don’t be a hero,” Yacoubian says. “Heroes are so sad.”
Here are some excerpts from the story:
Speaking over a scratchy telephone line from inside a Cuban prison, Sarkis Yacoubian’s voice goes suddenly silent. He’s crying.
“I was so depressed at times, I wanted to commit suicide,” says the 53-year-old entrepreneur.
In exclusive interviews from the La Condesa prison, Yacoubian provides an insider’s view of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign by the government of Raúl Castro that has seen several foreign businessmen — including himself and another Toronto-area businessman — jailed.
A joint investigation by The Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald has found that in a corruption-plagued country described in secret U.S. government cables as “a state on the take,” the two jailed Canadians are embroiled in a high-stakes diplomatic and legal stand-off between Havana and Ottawa, potentially jeopardizing millions in taxpayer dollars that underwrite Canada’s trade with Cuba.
Arrested in July 2011 and detained for nearly two years without charges, Yacoubian, who ran a transport and trading company, was finally handed a 63-page indictment last month accusing him of bribery, tax evasion and “activities damaging to the economy.”
A suspect who says he quickly pointed the finger at widespread wrongdoing by other Canadian and foreign businesses, Yacoubian now faces up to 12 years in prison after he pleads guilty at his trial set to begin next Thursday. The charges were filed in a special Havana court for Crimes against the Security of the State, which can effectively hold trials in secret [...]
[T]heir Havana offices are shuttered, their fortunes frozen and their future in limbo.
Cuban authorities in Havana and at the country’s embassy in Ottawa declined to be interviewed for this story.
Complicating matters is that millions in Canadian taxpayer dollars funded by the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) — a kind of broker that underwrites contracts between the Cuban government and select Canadian firms — may be at stake [...]
Whisked away to a “safe house” for questioning and allowed outside for only one hour a day, Yacoubian says he slipped into desperation and depression. “I had lost my mind,” he says. “I was talking to myself, banging my head.”
Then Yacoubian made a fateful choice: He blew the whistle. “Maybe in my conscience I wanted my company to be brought down so that I could tell once for all things that are going on,” he says. “It was just eating me alive.”
He told his interrogators that he had little choice but to hand over money to bureaucrats or officials to secure contracts or even to ensure they were honored after winning a bid.
“If I didn’t pay, at the end of the day they would just create problems for me,” he says. Prosecutors allege in their court filing that Yacoubian or his employees bribed at least a dozen state officials with everything from nice dinners and prepaid phone cards to cash — $300 for a tip on a deal, $50,000 for a 2008 contract on earth movers.
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