HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
Date sent: Sun, 09 Mar 2003 15:02:52 -0500 From: Donna Stainsby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: A threat to Canadas sovereignty-- Granma International To: marxmail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ converted from html ] 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. Sabzali, aged 42, was the defendant in a three-week trial in that city, charged with the heinous crime of selling 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. FIRST CANADIAN CITIZEN TRIED FOR VIOLATING THE BLOCKADE 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, amended on various occasions and discredited in its use against the little but great Caribbean island. The UN General Assembly has almost unanimously condemned those sanctions. 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 war¼ 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. Full article at: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/agosto02/mie14/33vent-i.html ~~~~~~~ PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message. --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bdn7KI.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html ==^^===============================================================
