• Submitted by: lena campos
• Society
• 06 / 21 / 2013

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Two British businessmen who faced corruption charges in Cuba have been released, the British Embassy has said.

Amado Fakhre, who was executive director of an investment firm, and Stephen Purvis, who was chief of operations, were arrested in 2011.

The offices of their company, Coral Capital Group, were shut down during an anti-corruption crackdown by President Raul Castro's government.

Both were held for two years. Details of the hearing were not made public.

Embassy spokesman Rhys Patrick said Mr Purvis was freed on Monday and Mr Fakhre was released on Wednesday. He said he could not discuss why the men were freed, nor give any information on their whereabouts.

Both had been held at La Condesa prison in Havana following the crackdown on Coral Capital which, before it closed, had joint ventures with Cuban government businesses in managing hotels around the island and represented a number of foreign car companies in the country.

President Castro has said that corruption poses the most serious threat to Cuba's socialist system, and in recent years the Cuban authorities have been pursuing corruption cases against both foreign people and Cubans.

As a consequence, several dozen defendants have ended up in jail, including a number of foreigners and high ranking government officials accused of taking bribes and influence peddling.

Source: BBC.co.uk