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U.S. ‘EMBARGO’ ON CUBA
Canadian businessman
Sabzali
finally free
BY STEVE ECKARDT
PHILADELPHIA.—Eight years of battle over a key
embargo issue came to a close early this year as the
U.S. government quietly withdrew its final attack on
Canadian businessman James Sabzali, an effort to
deport him from his adopted home in the United
States.
Washington had pursued deportation despite an
earlier plea agreement with Sabzali. "The government
reneged on its offer," he explained in an interview.
But now deportation has joined the original 76
charges filed against Sabzali in the rubble that was
once Washington's largest prosecution for violation
of its anti-Cuba embargo.
Sabzali had faced life imprisonment and over $19
million USD in fines for sales of water purification
supplies to Cuban hospitals.
Key was Sabzali's being a Canadian citizen
conducting business inside Canada for the majority
of his alleged violations of the U.S. Trading with
the Enemy Act. What's more, the Canadian
Extraterritorial Measures Act simultaneously
prohibited him from cooperating with the U.S.
embargo. And so the issue seemed simply posed: whose
laws were paramount in Canada – Ottowa’s or
Washington? Could the United States override law
inside another sovereign nation?
However extraordinary that possibility, there seemed
little question that Sabzali would nonetheless fall
under the wheels of the relentless U.S. blockade
against Cuba.
After all, the case against him opened in the midst
of Washington sharply tightening its stranglehold on
the island in anticipation of Cuba's "imminent
collapse" following the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Imposing draconian criminal sanctions on both
foreign and its own citizens was simply a logical
component of these escalations, a criminal law
version of the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts.
In any case, Sabzali seemed an unlikely leading man
for such an international clash. The smallish,
quietly handsome family man – a Canadian citizen
from Trinidad – was a businessman with a degree in
chemistry. "Canadians have always had good
relationships with Cubans," says Sabzali, now 46. "I
was Canadian, I was in business for myself, and Cuba
was an opportunity. So I went and did business with
them."
Nor were his co-defendants, the U.S.-based Bro-Tech
Corporation and its chief officers Stefan and Donald
Brodie, likely standard-bearers for a battle against
the blockade.
In fact (reported here for the first time)
negotiations on this case took place with the U.S.
Attorney General – the highest U.S. law enforcement
officer – rather than with the local official
actually carrying out the prosecution.
But of course historic geopolitical considerations –
the U.S. rulers' profound hostility to the Cuban
Revolution and their belief in its 'impending
collapse' – overwhelmed the usual advantages
conferred by either direct access to the Attorney
General or being represented by the President's
lawyer. The highest levels of the U.S. government
had decided Sabzali and his co-defendants were going
to go to prison, perhaps for a very long time
indeed.
It began by seizing not only his passport, but also
those of his wife and two young children, thereby
detaining even his family.
At the same time, Washington seized the deed to
Sabzali's house, meaning even a successful (if
highly unlikely) escape from the U.S. would lose the
family a property representing most of its life
savings.
But in any case fleeing would be difficult indeed,
thanks to the electronic bracelet on Sabzali's ankle
that was constantly scanned to determine his
location. A trip ten miles from his house would set
off alarms and dispatch federal agents to the
precise location given by his bracelet.
Sabzali had only to agree to testify against his
co-defendants to make all this – including the 76
charges against him – go away." Or at the very least
to ensure his future would be far brighter than life
in a federal penitentiary.
Iit seemed Washington had all its dominoes in place.
And surely, with the momentum its anti-Cuba
juggernaut steadily gained through the 1990's, they
would fall: first Sabzali; then Bro-Tech; then
Canadian law; next, resistance to a worldwide
blockade; and finally the Cuban economy and the
revolution itself. Perhaps 45 years of war was about
to pay off.
But Sabzali turned aside all threats and promises,
and refused to collaborate with the government
against his co-defendants. "The government was
wrong. There was no point in cooperating with them
because I did nothing wrong."
Indeed, news of the 76 charges filed against Sabzali
caused what one Philadelphia newspaper called "a
storm of protest" in Canada, long-tired of having
its sovereignty violated by its colossal southern
neighbor. Canadian editorialists called the charges
"outrageous" and demanded their government oppose
them, and Canadians citizens poured out letters of
support for Sabzali; shortly thereafter Ottawa sent
off first one and then another diplomatic protest to
Washington.
Behind the outcry in Canada lay a growing
international rejection of the U.S. blockade, a
rejection not about to quietly abide Washington
imposing its anti-Cuba laws inside other countries.
And so as news of the case spread, so did worldwide
support for Sabzali; the Scottish Parliament passed
a protest resolution, and tens of thousands of
Cubans demonstrated their backing, while Cuba
solidarity activists in the United States unleashed
a cascade of electronic publicity.
Rising opposition and the glare of international
publicity increasingly revealed that, once again,
the U.S. rulers had miscalculated their ability to
strangle Cuba. The plan to use Sabzali to establish
U.S. law applied outside its borders was in
jeopardy.
Although Sabzali and his co-defendants were
convicted in early 2002 on scores of charges, a slow
retreat soon began. By June 2003 the same court
actually overturned its own 'guilty' verdicts, the
judge – recognizing that the U.S. government had
over-reached – citing grievous prosecutorial
misconduct that otherwise would have passed
unnoticed.
What came next was an agreement between defense and
prosecution on a guilty plea to a single, lesser
charge and no requirement of jail time – thus
sparing both Washington further embarrassment and
Sabzali another trial and the possibility of life in
prison.
Sabzali pointed out that "the difference between the
76 counts and the single one we settled on is
between possible life in prison and a single year of
probation. It’s a chasm that speaks volumes about
the strength of the government’s case."
And so after nearly five years of what he calls
"all-consuming" struggle that left him "cut off from
society, and unable to do anything else," Sabzali
looks forward "to resuming normal life, being
finally free" of the case. After half a decade
without a passport, no surprise that travel is near
the top of his list.
"Unfortunately," says Sabzali, "I cannot continue my
friendships in Cuba." Like all residents of the
United States, regardless of their citizenship, he
is prevented from visiting Cuba by the U.S. travel
ban. In fact, even the issues in his own case are
not entirely resolved. Sabzali's single guilty plea
was for a 1994 transaction carried out while he was
an independent businessman living in Canada. This
establishes, said the U.S. prosecutor Joseph Poluka
in an interview, that "you’re not allowed to violate
the laws of this country just because you live
outside it."
Sabzali disputes the simplicity of that judgement:
"I was convicted not for what I did, but for what I
didn't do. I was supposed to inform the U.S.
authorities that some of its citizens were violating
U.S. law. What I pled guilty to was knowing that
something was happening that was against U.S. law
(not against Canadian law or any other law in the
world) and not alerting the U.S. authorities that
this was happening. But conducting business with
Cuba from Canada remains perfectly legal."
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