[PEN-L:9443] Spaniard arrested in US for trading with the enemy

[D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

The Ottawa Citizen 		Business Page	Wednesday 9 April 1997

SPANIARD INDICTED FOR DOING BUSINESS WITH CUBA

MIAMI - A Spanish businessman, arrested for doing business with Cuba, was
indicted by a U.S. grand jury for trading with the enemy, money-laundering and
conspiracy, the U.S. attorney's office said Wednesday.
	In an indictment handed down late Tuesday, Javier Ferreiro, 45, a
Spaniard who is a resident of the Cuban capital Havana, was charged with
eight counts of violating the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, five counts of
money-laundering and one count of conspiracy, said Willy Fernandez, a
spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami.
	Prosecutors contend Ferreiro shipped products such as ketchup, canned
vegetables, diapers and sanitary napkins through Miami to companies shipping
documents said were based in the Dominican Republic and Curacao but were
actually Cuban.
	He faces up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million.
	"This is, I think, a classic example of the type of trading that takes
place with Cuba despite the Helms-Burton act and despite the Trading With
the Enemy Act," Fernandez said, in a reference to the Cuban Liberty and
Democratic Solidarity Act, which President Bill Clinton signed last year.
	"This is one of the reasons Helms-Burton was enacted."
	Ferreiro was arrested last Tuesday at a shopping mall on Key Biscayne,
Fla., an upscale island near downtown Miami. A judge ordered Ferreiro held in
pre-trial detention after prosecutors said he was a risk to flee.
	His trial is not expected to take place for at least 70 days. An
arraignment is scheduled Friday morning.
	"It is illegal to ship goods from the United States to Cuba for any type
of commercial venture, mattering not if you are an American citizen or not,"
Michael Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs Department, said earlier
this week.
	The United States imposed its economic embargo on Cuba more than
three decades ago.
	In Havana, representatives of Spanish firms doing business in Cuba
were concerned about Ferreiro's fate.
	Rafael Garcia Aznar, president of the Association of Spanish Business
in Cuba, said his group has written to Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes
expressing concern about the detention and what the association sees as a lack
of support from the Spanish government on the case.
	"They (the Foreign Ministry) should have reacted much more firmly,"
Garcia said.
	The Cuban Foreign Ministry has so far not commented on the case. But
the deputy president of Cuba's Council of Ministers, Jose Ramon Fernandez,
told Spanish reporters in Havana on Tuesday that Ferreiro's detention signals
the United States is trying to terrorize Spanish businessmen, so that they don't
invest or do business here."