BY GABRIEL MOLINA
CANADIAN James Sabzali has been found guilty of trading with Cuba and is waiting to be sentenced a few days time. He is currently under house arrest in Philadelphia; an electronic tag attached to his ankle monitors his movements.
According to the Canadian press, Sabzali is accompanied by his wife and their two children. She says that the tagging is the worst part of what is happening.
The heinous crime that 42-year-old Sabzali committed was to sell water-purifying chemicals to Cuban hospitals. For this, he had to face a three-week trial in Philadelphia and was found guilty on April 5, 2002. Nonetheless, the European Union and Canadian governments vote in favor of U.S. prepared resolutions against Cuba at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
James Sabzali was born in Trinidad, later moving to Hamilton, Canada, where he worked from 1991-96 as a sales representative and marketing director for Purolite International Inc., an Ottawa-based subsidiary of the U.S. company Bro Tech Corporation. His job took him to Havana on more than 20 occasions; in 1996, he was transferred to Philadelphia as head of the firm. It was in that city that he was prosecuted for alleged crimes committed in Canada and found guilty on eight of the 20 charges brought against him.
The 12 remaining charges refer to shipments from Bro Tech offices in Canada, Mexico, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Those countries do not recognize the U.S. blockade of Cuba, which has been in place for more than 40 years. In any event the products, at a value of $2 million USD over five years, were never exported to Cuba from the United States, but from Britain and Canada.
According to the BBC, Sabzali is the first Canadian to be tried and sentenced for violating U.S. legislation related to the U.S. war against Cuba. Washington applies a strict economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, based on the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, which dates back to 1917, extended and discredited in its use against the little but great Caribbean island. Havana uses civil measures to counteract those bellicose measures utilized by the U.S. government to justify the blockade, almost unanimously condemned by the UN General Assembly for nine consecutive years.
The Canadian government's Foreign Affairs and International Trade Department has objected to Sabzali's trial, affirming that it is unacceptable that he should be sentenced for something that is not a crime in his country.
In an article titled It isn't our embargo, written when Sabzali was found guilty, The Toronto Star daily, which has been urging the government to protest at the extraterritorial application of U.S. law since the three-week trial began, stated that it was a relic from the cold war... an inexplicable violation of Canadian sovereignty, with the added irony that it came on the same day that a U.S. enterprise announced sales to Cuba worth $100 million USD.
The voice of Congressman Lincoln Díaz Balart could not fail to be heard in this farce, alleging that that Sabzali's trade dealings took place prior to new legislation permitting - with serious limitations - the sale of U.S. medicines and foodstuffs to Cuba. For the hawks' spokesman, laws do not have retroactive effect even when they favor the accused.
Despite being a Canadian citizen, Sabzali could be sentenced to a prison term ranging from four to 200 years and hefty fines of up to $250,000 USD on each count. However, district attorney Joseph Poluka has asked for 41 to 51 months imprisonment as a minimum and conservative calculation. Poluka admitted that events in Hamilton are not technically in his jurisdiction. But, once again making a mockery of U.S. justice, he maintained that there has been a violation of U.S. law. The investigation lasted for five years and ended in October 2000 with 76 charges.
Sentencing should have taken place on June 28, but no information was available at that time, as the case has disappeared from international news agencies and newspapers. At the request of Granma International, the Canadian embassy in Havana stated that Sabzali's sentencing hearing is due in the third week of August. Officials there declined to comment on the case.
According to media sources, the Canadian government has rejected the findings, stating that the United States is trying to impose its laws beyond its borders.
David Robertson, defense lawyer for the accused, has called for a Canadian protest, in order that the nation should not be seen to have accepted U.S. jurisdiction on Canadian foreign policy.
Brothers Stefan (54) and Donald Brodie (58), both of U.S. nationality and company president and vice president, respectively, have been convicted alongside Sabzali. The case received scant coverage in the U.S. media.
On hearing the guilty charge, Sabzali stated that he was very confused, because as a Canadian citizen he was obliged to ignore the embargo, given his country's legislation against extraterritorial measures (the Canadian Extraterritorial Act). Trade with Cuba is legal in Canada and it is a fact that any Canadian company is obliged to inform Ottawa if it is instructed by the United States not to export to the island for political or legal reasons.
The Toronto Globe and Mail has declared that Canadian sovereignty is being undermined and published a statement by Barry Appleton, a Toronto lawyer specializing in trade, who said that the case could have profound implications for Canadian subsidiaries and branches of U.S. multinationals.
Among other disputes, such as that of steel tariffs, the case demonstrates how Washington is trying to impose its foreign policy on other countries, Appleton added.
The harsh sentence came as a shock, as to date, the courts have contented themselves with fines of a few thousand dollars and, in the case of a Spanish citizen, a Miami court sent him to prison for a matter of a few months.
Asked on the reasons behind the current Bush administration offensive, Peter McKenna, a Politics professor at Saint Vincent University, Halifax, informed the daily that it is a kind of compensation with a view to the elections, after being obliged to suspend Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. He added that this was compounded by the conduct of Otto Reich, who is guaranteeing a rapid and robust response.
On April 4, The Globe and Mail published an article on Reich titled Man of the Americas (read Cuba) in the State Department by Edward Greenspoon, who commented that, in the case of the new big shot for the Americas in the U.S. State Department, it should be understood that when an important nation beginning with C in the Western hemisphere comes to his mind, for him it is Cuba, not Canada.
The Globe went on to confirm that Reich is the official U.S. interlocutor with Canadian negotiators in talks on security and border problems post September 11. However, generally speaking, he has ignored reports from Tom Ridge, head of Canadian security. Asked about security problems in the treatment of refugees arriving in Canada from the United States, he did not seem to be well versed on the issue.
On the other hand, The Globe continues, he was better informed about disputes on the issue of timber, but admitted that he was not very au fait with the politics and economics surrounding this irksome issue. He observed that the issue is being handled by the Department of Trade, not the State Department.
However, he was able to expand - talking with authority and eloquence - on his long-term objectives in favor of the market economy, human rights and political liberties in Latin America, especially in Cuba.
There is nothing bad in itself about the close attention Reich is giving to Latin America, which suits him, and the relative lack of attention to Canada, states The Globe, commenting that relations between the two countries are obviously far above the remit of his office for Western Hemispheric Affairs, although he would do well to come to appreciate Canadian matters from time to time.
The Canadian daily ends by affirming that Reich's appointment gives greater force to the growing perception that the timber dispute is not receiving appropriate treatment within the Bush administration.
CANADIAN James Sabzali has been found guilty of trading with Cuba and is waiting to be sentenced a few days time. He is currently under house arrest in Philadelphia; an electronic tag attached to his ankle monitors his movements.
According to the Canadian press, Sabzali is accompanied by his wife and their two children. She says that the tagging is the worst part of what is happening.
The heinous crime that 42-year-old Sabzali committed was to sell water-purifying chemicals to Cuban hospitals. For this, he had to face a three-week trial in Philadelphia and was found guilty on April 5, 2002. Nonetheless, the European Union and Canadian governments vote in favor of U.S. prepared resolutions against Cuba at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
James Sabzali was born in Trinidad, later moving to Hamilton, Canada, where he worked from 1991-96 as a sales representative and marketing director for Purolite International Inc., an Ottawa-based subsidiary of the U.S. company Bro Tech Corporation. His job took him to Havana on more than 20 occasions; in 1996, he was transferred to Philadelphia as head of the firm. It was in that city that he was prosecuted for alleged crimes committed in Canada and found guilty on eight of the 20 charges brought against him.
The 12 remaining charges refer to shipments from Bro Tech offices in Canada, Mexico, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Those countries do not recognize the U.S. blockade of Cuba, which has been in place for more than 40 years. In any event the products, at a value of $2 million USD over five years, were never exported to Cuba from the United States, but from Britain and Canada.
According to the BBC, Sabzali is the first Canadian to be tried and sentenced for violating U.S. legislation related to the U.S. war against Cuba. Washington applies a strict economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, based on the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, which dates back to 1917, extended and discredited in its use against the little but great Caribbean island. Havana uses civil measures to counteract those bellicose measures utilized by the U.S. government to justify the blockade, almost unanimously condemned by the UN General Assembly for nine consecutive years.
The Canadian government's Foreign Affairs and International Trade Department has objected to Sabzali's trial, affirming that it is unacceptable that he should be sentenced for something that is not a crime in his country.
In an article titled It isn't our embargo, written when Sabzali was found guilty, The Toronto Star daily, which has been urging the government to protest at the extraterritorial application of U.S. law since the three-week trial began, stated that it was a relic from the cold war... an inexplicable violation of Canadian sovereignty, with the added irony that it came on the same day that a U.S. enterprise announced sales to Cuba worth $100 million USD.
The voice of Congressman Lincoln Díaz Balart could not fail to be heard in this farce, alleging that that Sabzali's trade dealings took place prior to new legislation permitting - with serious limitations - the sale of U.S. medicines and foodstuffs to Cuba. For the hawks' spokesman, laws do not have retroactive effect even when they favor the accused.
Despite being a Canadian citizen, Sabzali could be sentenced to a prison term ranging from four to 200 years and hefty fines of up to $250,000 USD on each count. However, district attorney Joseph Poluka has asked for 41 to 51 months imprisonment as a minimum and conservative calculation. Poluka admitted that events in Hamilton are not technically in his jurisdiction. But, once again making a mockery of U.S. justice, he maintained that there has been a violation of U.S. law. The investigation lasted for five years and ended in October 2000 with 76 charges.
Sentencing should have taken place on June 28, but no information was available at that time, as the case has disappeared from international news agencies and newspapers. At the request of Granma International, the Canadian embassy in Havana stated that Sabzali's sentencing hearing is due in the third week of August. Officials there declined to comment on the case.
According to media sources, the Canadian government has rejected the findings, stating that the United States is trying to impose its laws beyond its borders.
David Robertson, defense lawyer for the accused, has called for a Canadian protest, in order that the nation should not be seen to have accepted U.S. jurisdiction on Canadian foreign policy.
Brothers Stefan (54) and Donald Brodie (58), both of U.S. nationality and company president and vice president, respectively, have been convicted alongside Sabzali. The case received scant coverage in the U.S. media.
On hearing the guilty charge, Sabzali stated that he was very confused, because as a Canadian citizen he was obliged to ignore the embargo, given his country's legislation against extraterritorial measures (the Canadian Extraterritorial Act). Trade with Cuba is legal in Canada and it is a fact that any Canadian company is obliged to inform Ottawa if it is instructed by the United States not to export to the island for political or legal reasons.
The Toronto Globe and Mail has declared that Canadian sovereignty is being undermined and published a statement by Barry Appleton, a Toronto lawyer specializing in trade, who said that the case could have profound implications for Canadian subsidiaries and branches of U.S. multinationals.
Among other disputes, such as that of steel tariffs, the case demonstrates how Washington is trying to impose its foreign policy on other countries, Appleton added.
The harsh sentence came as a shock, as to date, the courts have contented themselves with fines of a few thousand dollars and, in the case of a Spanish citizen, a Miami court sent him to prison for a matter of a few months.
Asked on the reasons behind the current Bush administration offensive, Peter McKenna, a Politics professor at Saint Vincent University, Halifax, informed the daily that it is a kind of compensation with a view to the elections, after being obliged to suspend Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. He added that this was compounded by the conduct of Otto Reich, who is guaranteeing a rapid and robust response.
On April 4, The Globe and Mail published an article on Reich titled Man of the Americas (read Cuba) in the State Department by Edward Greenspoon, who commented that, in the case of the new big shot for the Americas in the U.S. State Department, it should be understood that when an important nation beginning with C in the Western hemisphere comes to his mind, for him it is Cuba, not Canada.
The Globe went on to confirm that Reich is the official U.S. interlocutor with Canadian negotiators in talks on security and border problems post September 11. However, generally speaking, he has ignored reports from Tom Ridge, head of Canadian security. Asked about security problems in the treatment of refugees arriving in Canada from the United States, he did not seem to be well versed on the issue.
On the other hand, The Globe continues, he was better informed about disputes on the issue of timber, but admitted that he was not very au fait with the politics and economics surrounding this irksome issue. He observed that the issue is being handled by the Department of Trade, not the State Department.
However, he was able to expand - talking with authority and eloquence - on his long-term objectives in favor of the market economy, human rights and political liberties in Latin America, especially in Cuba.
There is nothing bad in itself about the close attention Reich is giving to Latin America, which suits him, and the relative lack of attention to Canada, states The Globe, commenting that relations between the two countries are obviously far above the remit of his office for Western Hemispheric Affairs, although he would do well to come to appreciate Canadian matters from time to time.
The Canadian daily ends by affirming that Reich's appointment gives greater force to the growing perception that the timber dispute is not receiving appropriate treatment within the Bush administration.
