In a timely spark of controversy, the American polemicist and filmmaker, Michael Moore, is being investigated by the US Treasury for possible breaches of America's trade embargo with Cuba.

In February, Moore took a group of around 10 former rescue workers still suffering from breathing problems caused by the September 11 attacks for health treatment in Cuba — the idea being to expose America's healthcare system for his latest documentary SiCKO.

But the Associated Press reported today that the trip attracted the attention of the US Treasury's Department of Office of Foreign Assets Control, which monitors the trade embargo imposed on Cuba by John F. Kennedy in 1963. On May 2, Treasury officials wrote to Moore saying he had not received proper authorisation for the journey.

“This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba,” wrote Dale Thompson, chief of general investigations and field operations at OFAC, according to the AP. Mr Thompson said Moore was being investigated for civil violations of the embargo, which can carry fines of up to $55,000 per violation.

BACKGROUND

• Sicko review

• Weinstein braces for backlash

• Moore is wrong about the NHS

• Ministering to the Sicko

BACKGROUND

• Moore in hot water for Cuba trip

• Citizen Moore

• Moore's ill wind blows over political agenda

• Review: America: Dude, Where's My Country by Michael Moore

• Tables turned on Fahrenheit 9/11’s maker

Just how good is Mr Good Guy?

Michael Moore is misleading, vain, irritating, greedy, hypocritical, pointless and ineffective. Or is he?

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

SiCKO, described by Moore as "a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth" is expected to assault America's healthcare system in much the same way as Moore's other popular films — Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Roger and Me — challenged their various foes of the US gun industry, the Bush Administration and General Motors.

Two years in the making, it will premiere at the Cannes film festival on May 19 before being released across America on June 29. "The health care industry might not have a very good July Fourth," said Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Company has financed the project, when the release date was announced yesterday.

The Treasury investigation is believed to focus on Moore's application to visit and film in Cuba last October. Moore applied to go to the country under a provision maintained for American journalists but is accused of not suppling adequate information about his itinerary and intentions and then going before he received proper permission.

The trip was criticised at the time by a Republican Senator, Fred Thompson, who said he had "no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care", and by rescue workers who either refused Moore's invitation or were invited and then omitted from the actual trip.

"I would rather die in America than go to Cuba," Joe Picurro, an ironworker from New Jersey told The New York Post after he was invited by Moore with an e-mail that read, "Joe and Mike in Cuba." Mr Picurro, who has been forced to hold fundraisers to pay for his healthcare added: "I just laughed. I couldn't do it."

Today's news, displayed prominently on Moore's website despite his refusal to comment on the allegations, carries an echo of the similarly-timed controversy that marked the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 at Cannes in 2004.

Then the film was publicly dropped by Disney because of its political content before being picked up and released independently by the Weinstein brothers. Breaking the mould of traditional documentary, the film went on to win the Palme d'Or at the festival before grossing $222 million worldwide and establishing Moore as a pin-up of anti-Bush protesters and a punch-bag for America's conservative right.

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