MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban Minister of Justice Oscar Silvera traveled to London to participate in the last days of the trial against the Cuban regime and the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) for non-payment of a debt of 72 million euros filed by the firm of investors CRF-I Ltd., based in Grand Cayman.
“I am in London. I will be participating in final days of the hearing at the High Court of England. We defend the truth: Banco Nacional and Cuba ratify that CRF has not been and is not your creditor”, said Silvera from the social network Twitter.
I am in London. I will be participating in final days of the hearing at the High Court of England. We defend the truth: Banco Nacional and Cuba confirm that CRF has not been and is not its creditor. @CubaMinjus pic.twitter.com/lbPDPHI7fn
—Oscar Silvera Martínez (@OscarCubaMinjus) January 31, 2023
In previous sessions of the trial, which began on Monday, January 23, the Cuban government has argued that the group is a vulture fund to avoid paying the debt. Just as it considers the authorization granted in November 2019 by Raúl Olivera Lozano, then director of operations of Banco Nacional de Cuba, invalid, since the CRF-I is not registered with the BNC as a creditor (only its request).
However, CRF has accused the Cuban government of “fabricating pretexts” and maintains that the group “is too small” to be considered “a vulture fund.”
Recently, the economist Elías Amor explained that one of the flanks that Castroism has tried to attack during the trial is the fact that CRF-I representatives who were interrogated by the English barrister who leads the defense of the Cuban side have admitted that the lawsuit before the courts was an option from who tried to adjudicate the debt titles.
It is, in any case, a procedure established within the modus operandi of the so-called venture capital funds and not a violation or illegality, pointed out the economist.
The expert recalled that it was the dictatorship that “turned a deaf ear to any claim from creditors, and there is also evidence of that, so that the judicial route was not the first intention, far from it.”
During the next few hours, Judge Sara Cockerill will have to determine if the CRF is the legitimate creditor of the titles for 72 million, derived from loan contracts signed by the Government of Fidel Castro with two European banks in 1984.
The trial sessions have been accompanied by Cuban émigrés who they have manifested outside the Court of Justice, denouncing and demanding payment of the debt from the regime.
