British businessmen await Cuba's verdict as graft trial ends

British businessmen await Cuba's verdict as graft trial ends
By Marc Frank
HAVANA | Fri May 31, 2013 7:50pm EDT

(Reuters) - The two-day trial of two top executives of a British
investment fund ended in Havana on Friday with a five judge panel
expected to deliver its verdict within 10 days.

The sentences of two other foreigners tried a week ago have yet to be
announced, as the government presses forward with an unprecedented
crackdown on corruption.

In this week's trial on the communist-run island, Amado Fakhre, a
Lebanese-born British citizen and chief executive officer of Coral
Capital Group Ltd, faced various bribery charges related mainly to the
fund's import business.

Chief Operating Officer Stephen Purvis, who headed various investment
projects, faced lesser charges, such as operating outside the bounds of
the fund's license, sources close to the case said on condition of
anonymity.

The defendants' lawyers and British consular officials had no comment
upon leaving the court, an old mansion, surrounded by an iron fence, in
an outlying Havana neighborhood.

The trial was closed to the media.

There are only a few foreign investment funds in Cuba. Coral Capital
said it invested some $75 million and had more than $1 billion of
projects in the works.

The company was caught up in an investigation of Cuba's international
trading sector, part of a broader crackdown on corruption by President
Raul Castro after he replaced ailing brother Fidel in 2008.

Fakhre has been jailed since the company's offices were raided and
closed in October 2011. Purvis was arrested and imprisoned in March 2012.

In September 2011, authorities shut down one of the most important
Western trading companies in Cuba, Canada-based Tokmakjian Group, after
doing the same in July to another Canadian trading firm, Tri-Star Caribbean.

The owner of Tri-Star Caribbean, Sarkis Yacoubian, originally from
Armenia, was tried last week at the same court. He and an associate,
Lebanese citizen Krikor Bayassalian, were charged with bribery, tax
evasion and damaging the economy.

DOZENS ARRESTED

Dozens of Cuban officials and businessmen have reportedly been arrested,
tried and sentenced in the anti-corruption sweep.

Cuba's state-run media has not yet reported the trials, nor mentioned
the arrests and crackdown on foreign trade.

Castro established the comptroller general's office in 2009, even as he
began implementing market-oriented economic reforms.

That step marked the start of the anti-corruption campaign that
uncovered high-level graft in sectors ranging from the cigar, nickel and
communications industries to food processing and civil aviation.

Coral Capital, registered in the British Virgin Islands in 1999, was
best known in Cuba as the joint venture partner in Havana's upscale
Saratoga Hotel and another hotel complex on the resort key of Cayo Coco.
It had plans to build golf courses and related real estate developments
near Havana.

The fund branched into trade financing and importing heavy equipment and
other merchandise and this may have led to its problems, foreign
business sources said.

The company represented various international brands in Cuba, among them
Liebherr Earth Moving, Yamaha Motor Corporation and Peugeot Motorcycles,
according to its website, now defunct.

(Reporting by Marc Frank. Editing by Andre Grenon)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-cuba-corruption-trial-idUSBRE94U1B920130531