diff --git a/swh/loader/package/cran/loader.py b/swh/loader/package/cran/loader.py
--- a/swh/loader/package/cran/loader.py
+++ b/swh/loader/package/cran/loader.py
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@
     """Parse debian control at filepath"""
     metadata: Dict = {}
     logger.debug('Debian control file %s', filepath)
-    for paragraph in Deb822.iter_paragraphs(open(filepath)):
+    for paragraph in Deb822.iter_paragraphs(open(filepath, 'rb')):
         logger.debug('paragraph: %s', paragraph)
         metadata.update(**paragraph)
 
diff --git a/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/data/description/KnownBR b/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/data/description/KnownBR
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/data/description/KnownBR
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+Package: KnowBR
+Version: 2.0
+Title: Discriminating Well Surveyed Spatial Units from Exhaustive
+        Biodiversity Databases
+Author: C疽tor Guisande Gonz疝ez and Jorge M. Lobo
+Maintainer: C疽tor Guisande Gonz疝ez <castor@email.es>
+Description: It uses species accumulation curves and diverse estimators...
+License: GPL (>= 2)
+Encoding: latin1
+Depends: R (>= 3.0), fossil, mgcv, plotrix, sp, vegan
+Suggests: raster, rgbif
+NeedsCompilation: no
+Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:27:29 UTC; castor
+Repository: CRAN
+Date/Publication: 2019-01-31 20:53:50 UTC
diff --git a/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/data/description/acepack b/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/data/description/acepack
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/data/description/acepack
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+Package: acepack
+Maintainer: Shawn Garbett
+Version: 1.4.1
+Author: Phil Spector, Jerome Friedman, Robert Tibshirani...
+Description: Two nonparametric methods for multiple regression...
+Title: ACE & AVAS 4 Selecting Multiple Regression Transformations
+License: MIT + file LICENSE
+Suggests: testthat
+Packaged: 2016-10-28 15:38:59 UTC; garbetsp
+Repository: CRAN
+Date/Publication: 2016-10-29 00:11:52
+NeedsCompilation: yes
diff --git a/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/test_cran.py b/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/test_cran.py
--- a/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/test_cran.py
+++ b/swh/loader/package/cran/tests/test_cran.py
@@ -12,7 +12,8 @@
 from os import path
 
 from swh.loader.package.cran.loader import (
-    extract_intrinsic_metadata, CRANLoader, parse_date
+    extract_intrinsic_metadata, CRANLoader, parse_date,
+    parse_debian_control
 )
 from swh.core.tarball import uncompress
 
@@ -265,3 +266,52 @@
         if m.url.startswith(base_url)
     ]
     assert len(urls) == 1, 'visited one time artifact url (across 2 visits)'
+
+
+def test_parse_debian_control(datadir):
+    description_file = os.path.join(datadir, 'description', 'acepack')
+
+    actual_metadata = parse_debian_control(description_file)
+
+    assert actual_metadata == {
+        'Package': 'acepack',
+        'Maintainer': 'Shawn Garbett',
+        'Version': '1.4.1',
+        'Author': 'Phil Spector, Jerome Friedman, Robert Tibshirani...',
+        'Description': 'Two nonparametric methods for multiple regression...',
+        'Title': 'ACE & AVAS 4 Selecting Multiple Regression Transformations',
+        'License': 'MIT + file LICENSE',
+        'Suggests': 'testthat',
+        'Packaged': '2016-10-28 15:38:59 UTC; garbetsp',
+        'Repository': 'CRAN',
+        'Date/Publication': '2016-10-29 00:11:52',
+        'NeedsCompilation': 'yes'
+    }
+
+
+def test_parse_debian_control_unicode_issue(datadir):
+    # iso-8859-1 caused failure, now fixed
+    description_file = os.path.join(
+        datadir, 'description', 'KnownBR'
+    )
+
+    actual_metadata = parse_debian_control(description_file)
+
+    assert actual_metadata == {
+        'Package': 'KnowBR',
+        'Version': '2.0',
+        'Title': '''Discriminating Well Surveyed Spatial Units from Exhaustive
+        Biodiversity Databases''',
+        'Author': 'Cástor Guisande González and Jorge M. Lobo',
+        'Maintainer': 'Cástor Guisande González <castor@email.es>',
+        'Description':
+        'It uses species accumulation curves and diverse estimators...',
+        'License': 'GPL (>= 2)',
+        'Encoding': 'latin1',
+        'Depends': 'R (>= 3.0), fossil, mgcv, plotrix, sp, vegan',
+        'Suggests': 'raster, rgbif',
+        'NeedsCompilation': 'no',
+        'Packaged': '2019-01-30 13:27:29 UTC; castor',
+        'Repository': 'CRAN',
+        'Date/Publication': '2019-01-31 20:53:50 UTC'
+    }