From Ian Cobain in Havana.
The Times. UK, October 31 2000.
HOPES of an early release for seven Britons under arrest in Cuba appeared to
fade last night when a British government minister visiting the island said he
had no intention of intervening on their behalf.
Brian Wilson, Minister of State at the Scotland Office, said: "I
certainly will not be raising the issue."
Mr Wilson, who is heading a trade delegation to Cuba, said the Foreign
Office will push for a swift conclusion to the investigation into the activities
of the six East End private eyes arrested three weeks ago along with the
girlfriend of one of the men. But he added: "We cannot dictate to the
Cubans the pace of the judicial process."
The minister was confident the Cuban judicial process will be "fair and
just" and said he would be prepared to discuss the case if it was raised by
the Cuban ministers and officials he will meet during his four-day visit.
The Cubans had "very good information" about the private
detectives’ surveillance operation and the people who had hired them, which
had been passed on to the British Embassy in Havana.
Mr Wilson said he could not divulge details as the case was sub judice. "I
have a view about British citizens getting involved in such activities while
abroad but I do not think it would be helpful to voice it," he added.
Yesterday Mr Wilson met José Luis Rodriguez, Fidel Castro’s
Economy and Planning Minister, and he plans to hold talks with the Minister for
Government, the Ministers of Foreign Trade, Tourism and Foreign Investment and
the President of Cuba’s Central Bank, during which he will back British oil
companies bidding for contracts in the country.
Bernard Garside, the British Consul in Havana, hopes to visit the Britons
tomorrow. An embassy spokeswoman said that families of the seven had been able
to pass messages to them but they had declined legal representation offered by
the Cubans.
The six men spent weeks tailing Michael Nahmad, a Panamanian millionaire,
from his power company office in the capital to his home in the suburb of
Miramar, and even rented the house next door to him in a search for evidence
that he was conducting an affair.
Their company, SIP Investigations, of Snaresbrook in East London, is said to
have been paid more than £100,000 by Mr Nahmad’s wife, Sarita.
Yesterday Mrs Nahmad repeated her denial of involvement — which is unlikely
to help the seven Britons’ defence.
Private eyes face years in jail for 'spying' in Cuba
From Ian Cobain in Havana. The Time. UK, October 30, 2000
FEARS were growing last night that six British private detectives arrested
in Cuba could spend years in jail after it emerged that a man they were tailing
plays a crucial role in Fidel Castro’s efforts to revive his ailing
economy.
British diplomats are trying to persuade the authorities in Havana to
release them, along with the girlfriend of one of the men, who is also being
detained, by arguing that they simply found themselves out of their depth while
helping a jealous wife to keep a close eye on her husband.
Far from enjoying a close liaison with another woman, however, the
Panamanian millionaire Michael Nahmad turned out to be in bed with Castro’s
regime, helping it to beat a US trade embargo for almost 20 years with imports
of everything from microchips to Rolex watches, and more recently attempting to
find a way of ending the country’s heavy reliance on poor-quality
locally-drilled crude oil.
The Cubans are said to be convinced that the team must have stumbled across
details of sensitive deals being negotiated, including attempts being made by
his main company, General Power Holdings, to secure fresh oil supplies for the
island.
The suspicions of the Cuban security service reached fever pitch when its
staff realised that the private detectives not only rented rooms in the
five-star Melia Hotel overlooking General Power’s office in the capital,
but had installed themselves as Mr Nahmad’s next -door neighbours. Posing
as tourists, four members of the team rented a pink and white beachside bungalow
less than 15ft from the businessman’s home on the Marina Hemingway estate
in Miramar on the western outskirts of Havana.
Among them was 25-year-old Michel Lacorte, a pony-tailed private detective
of Spanish descent from Enfield, North London, who would greet Mr Nahmad in
Spanish each morning as the businessman walked to his dark blue Toyota
Landcruiser.
Yesterday Mr Nahmad was said by neighbours to be in Panama, where most of
his business interests lie, and where his wife Sarita, a mother of three, has
filed for divorce after more than ten years of marriage.
He is contesting the divorce — possibly because his wife, a banking
heiress, is even wealthier than he is — and Mrs Nahmad is understood to
have paid the private detectives more than £100,000 to secure evidence that
her husband was conducting an adulterous affair while in Cuba.
Mr Nahmad could not be contacted in Panama. His lawyers, Matthysse y
Asociados, would merely confirm that his company had recently won a contract to
build an electricity generating plant in Cuba.
At Miramar, meanwhile, a team of builders were replastering the bungalow
where the Britons have been living, apparently after the Cuban security service
had ripped it apart in the search for evidence.
It was unclear last night whether the private detectives had simply followed
and photographed Mr Nahmad, or had obtained access to his home to plant
listening devices and to bug his telephone. There were unconfirmed reports that
a listening device had been found wedged in the woodwork of the front door.
A British Embassy spokeswoman said: "What the future holds for these
people is entirely a matter for the Cuban authorities. We are urging the Cubans
to either charge them or release them, but there’s no sign of that
happening."
The Foreign Office is hoping that the Scottish Office Minister Brian Wilson
will be able to negotiate with the Cubans. He was arriving yesterday at the head
of British trade delegation. Mr Wilson, who has visited Cuba three times before,
is thought to have a better chance of pacifying the authorities than most.The
men are being held at a Villa Marista, a converted Roman Catholic seminary in
the Santo Saures district of Havana, where Castro’s secret police usually
hold dissidents for interrogation.
Although diplomats say that all seven appear to be in good health and are
being well treated, conditions in Cuban jails are known to be poor with reports
of violence among inmates and sexual assault.
Those held are Ken Lodge, 51, the head of SIP Investigations, the East
London firm commissioned to spy on Mr Nahmad; Mr Lodge’s son-in-law Jon
Fawcett; Derek Pitt, who is a former security manager of a leading London hotel;
and Will Smart, a private detective. The sixth man and the girl, who is said to
be Mr Lacorte’s girlfriend, have not yet been named.
Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Ltd. | 