A British television producer accused of faking a documentary on the Cali drug cartel in South America also faked an award-winning interview with Cuban President Fidel Castro, the Guardian newspaper said Tuesday.
The “interview” actually consisted of archive material made available to the producer, Marc de Beaufort, by the Cuban government, the newspaper said. It quoted a Cuban government spokesman, a Cuban diplomat in London and Castro’s personal camera operator as agreeing that the interview was fake.
The twin charges of fakery could put in question the renewal of Carlton Television’s license to broadcast in Britain. Other possible penalties are a fine or a reduction in the period for which the license is held.
In response to the newspaper report, Carlton limited itself to a brief statement saying that answers can come only from de Beaufort. He was reported to be in Colombia and unavailable for comment.
Carlton aired the alleged interview with Castro in 1994 as part of an hourlong documentary called “Inside Castro’s Cuba.”
It was a largely sympathetic look at life in the Caribbean nation after the collapse of Soviet communism.
In its publicity, Carlton said de Beaufort had spent a “nerve-shattering year” in Cuba seeking the interview before he was granted “rare access” to Castro.
De Beaufort boasted in a publicity release: “Like some kind of bounty hunters, we’d bagged one of the most elusive interviewees in the world.”
The program won awards from the U.S.-based Worldfest and from the National Educational Film and Video Festival.
Last month, the Guardian said another de Beaufort documentary, which purported to give an inside look at activities of the Cali drug cartel in Colombia, was a fake, using interviews with people who were not members of the cartel as the program claimed.
That program, “The Connection,” won eight national and international awards. Parts of it were shown on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program.
It is now the subject of an investigation by the government watchdog body, the Independent Television Commission, and of an internal investigation by Carlton.
The Guardian quoted Carlton sources as saying one crucial piece of evidence, a filmed interview with a man alleged to be the No. 3 figure in the Cali cartel, had disappeared.
It quoted the sources as saying de Beaufort told Carlton he destroyed the tape as part of his arrangement with the alleged drug baron.
The Guardian said the Cuban program included seven clips of Castro talking to an unseen person or persons about the Cuban health service, boat people heading for Miami and the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba.
The newspaper said these clips, represented as an interview with de Beaufort, were archive footage made available by the Office of Historical Affairs in Havana.
It said the Cuban government was angered when alerted by a Havana filmmaker to the deception.
A Cuban government spokesman was quoted as saying, “President Fidel Castro has never given an interview to Carlton Television or producer Marc de Beaufort.”
Austin Mitchell, vice chairman of the House of Commons All-Party Media Committee, said, “This is a problem of irresponsible journalism, of hyping and sensationalism.”
He accused Carlton of failing to carry out internal checks and of “an obsessive desire to sensationalize to get ratings.”
Tom Sackville, a former Conservative government minister who has met Castro in Cuba, said that if the Guardian charges prove to be true it is “another worrying sign that Carlton (is) riding roughshod over our rules on quality standards in broadcasting.”
The Guardian said it repeatedly asked Carlton for details of the interview, but the company declined to provide them.
