Claude Covassi / Al-jazeera – Pour plusieurs raisons. D’abord, les services secrets suisses veulent faire voter un projet de loi impopulaire qui vise à renforcer leurs pouvoirs. Il était donc nécessaire d’avoir un « méchant », une sorte de mini Ben Laden, de manière à orienter l’opinion publique afin qu’elle agrée ces lois restrictives en terme les libertés individuelles.

Également, Hani Ramadan avait été limogé arbitrairement de son poste d’instituteur en 2003, en raison de sa prise de position sur l’inanité d’un moratoire à propos de la lapidation. Il a ensuite gagné tous ses procès contre le gouvernement qui refuse pourtant de le réintégrer dans son emploi. Le pouvoir politique ne peut pas tolérer qu’il puisse incarner, par sa victoire contre l’Etat, un leadership de l’Islam en Suisse. Cela d’autant plus qu’étant le petit-fils d’Hassan el-Banna, il est constamment suspecté d’être un représentant des Frères Musulmans, ce qui est évidemment mensonger. Hani Ramadan est un homme honnête, le Centre Islamique qu’il dirige est autofinancé. Les autorités helvétiques sont bien sûr plus complaisantes avec les représentant de l’Islam dont les salaires sont payés par des pays étrangers.

Pour toutes ces raisons, Hani Ramadan devenait trop gênant.

Vous avez été entendu à deux reprises par une commission d’enquête. Qu’attendez-vous de leur travail ?

Lors de ma deuxième audition, un homme qui nous a été présenté comme un technicien était en réalité un représentant des services secrets. Le président de la Délégation, le Conseiller aux Etats Hans Hofmann, s’en est ensuite excusé une quinzaine de jours plus tard, en admettant que c’était une « erreur ». Pires encore, les procès-verbaux de mes auditions ont été falsifiés, de manière à compromettre l’ensemble de mes déclarations. Je vous donne un exemple parmi la trentaine qu’il nous a été impossible de faire rectifier. Alors que je dis: « quand on me connaît un peu, il est impossible de penser que je suis manipulé par Hani Ramadan », le document protocolé indique exactement le contraire : « Quand on me connaît un peu, il n’est pas impossible de penser que je suis manipulé par Hani Ramadan ».

Voyez-vous, entre la vérité et l’intérêt de l’Etat, le choix de cette commission a manifestement été vite fait. Je ne me fais aucune illusion sur les conclusions que ses membres formuleront, et, pour tout dire, cela m’importe peu. En temps utile, je rendrai publique l’intégralité des informations en ma possession ainsi que les différentes activités illégales que m’ont demandé d’accomplir les services secrets, comme par exemple le financement d’activistes. Cela même si ça doit me coûter une inculpation. Nous verrons bien qui a le plus à perdre dans ce grand déballage.

Quelle est votre opinion aujourd’hui sur les services de renseignements ?

Le problème, en Suisse, est que le renseignement intérieur est confié à un service de la police fédérale, un mélange des genres qui n’aboutit qu’à des catastrophes. Ces gens, par exemple, considèrent qu’un musulman qui effectue ses cinq prières obligatoires dans une mosquée est un terroriste potentiel. Ils n’ont absolument aucune considération pour les valeurs de l’Islam.

Quelle est, selon vous, la situation des musulmans en Suisse ?

Au-delà des déclarations d’intention opportunistes d’hommes politiques démagogues, comme le Ministre de l’Intérieur Christophe Blocher, les faits démontrent que la Suisse, comme la plupart des pays occidentaux, devient tous les jours plus clairement islamophobe. L’UDC, le parti d’extrême-droite dont Monsieur Blocher est issu, s’emploie à dresser les citoyens les uns contre les autres en maniant dangereusement les amalgames. Pour vous donner un exemple, une récente campagne d’affichage de ce parti assimilait explicitement les musulmans pratiquant avec Ben Laden. Cela se passe de commentaire.

Vous êtes devenu musulman. Cela a-t-il changé votre vie ?

Bien sûr, ma conversion m’a ouvert les yeux sur beaucoup de chose, notamment sur la manière dont je menais ma vie. Ça a été une remise en question longue, profonde et parfois douloureuse. Je ne prétends pas être un musulman parfait, mais je me rends compte combien je souffrais auparavant alors que je me prétendais libre. J’étais en fait surtout libre de faire n’importe quoi n’importe comment. Au départ, l’Islam n’était pas pour moi un choix, mais les musulmans que j’ai rencontrés, particulièrement en Egypte, m’ont permis d’intégrer une véritable spiritualité. Mon allégeance est irréversible.

Dossier de Claude Covassi
Concerne: Claude COVASSI / Son retour en Suisse
Claude Covassi: Menes
Communiqué ATS/SDA: ULTIMATUM
Claude COVASSI / Son audition par la Délégation des Commissions de Gestion
Covassi: lettre à la Delegation des Commissions de Gestion
Covassi: Communiqué à l’ATS/SDA
Lettre à Monsieur Hofmann et La Délégation des Commissions de gestion
Claude Covassi: Communiqué à l’ATS/SDA
Affäre Covassi: Wer trägt die Verantwortung?
Communique a l’ATS-SDA
Streng öffentlich: Ex-Spion droht Geheimdienst bloßzustellen
Schweiz: Covassi – der Spion, der in die Kälte kam …
Vereitelte Schweizer Geheimdienst Terroranschlag auf El-Al?

Pakistan’s army chief and the head of the ISI, its intelligence agency, propose to sell heroin to pay for the country’s covert operations, according to Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister at the time.

Sharif claims that shortly after becoming prime minister, army chief of staff Gen. Aslam Beg and ISI director Gen. Asad Durrani present him with a plan to sell heroin through third parties to pay for covert operations that are no longer funded by the CIA, now that the Afghan war is over. Sharif claims he does not approve the plan.

Sharif will make these accusations in 1994, one year after he lost an election and became leader of the opposition. Durrani and Beg will deny the allegations. Both will have retired from these jobs by the time the allegations are made. The Washington Post will comment in 1994, “It has been rumored for years that Pakistan’s military has been involved in the drug trade.

Pakistan’s army, and particularly its intelligence agency… is immensely powerful and is known for pursuing its own agenda.” The Post will further note that in 1992, “A consultant hired by the CIA warned that drug corruption had permeated virtually all segments of Pakistani society and that drug kingpins were closely connected to the country’s key institutions of power, including the president and military intelligence agencies.”

Larisa Alexandrovna & David Dastych – US, Britain asked Poland to join clandestine program. The CIA operated an interrogation and short-term detention facility for suspected terrorists within a Polish intelligence training school with the explicit approval of British and US authorities, according to British and Polish intelligence officials familiar with the arrangements.

Intelligence officials identify the site as a component of a Polish intelligence training school outside the northern Polish village of Stare Kiejkuty. While previously suspected, the facility has never been conclusively identified as being part of the CIA’s secret rendition and detention program.

„Keep it as tight as possible“: Airstrip @ Szczytno-Szymany Airport

Only the Polish prime minister and top Polish intelligence brass were told of the plan, in which agents of the United States quietly shuttled detainees from other holding facilities around the globe for stopovers and short-term interrogation in Poland between late 2002 and 2004.

According to a confidential British intelligence memo shown to RAW STORY, Prime Minister Tony Blair told Poland’s then-Prime Minister Leszek Miller to keep the information secret, even from his own government. “Miller was asked to keep it as tight as possible,” the memo said.

The complex at Stare Kiejkuty, a Soviet-era compound once used by German intelligence in World War II, is best known as having been the only Russian intelligence training school to operate outside the Soviet Union. Its prominence in the Soviet era suggests that it may have been the facility first identified – but never named – when the Washington Post’s Dana Priest revealed the existence of the CIA’s secret prison network in November 2005.

Reached by telephone Monday, Priest would not discuss the allegations in her article beyond her original report.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would not confirm or deny any allegations about the Polish facility. He maintained the rendition program was legal and conducted “with great care.”

“The agency’s terrorist interrogation program has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review, producing vital information that has helped disrupt plots and save lives,” Gimigliano said Monday. “That is also true of renditions, another key, lawful tool in the fight against terror.”

“The United States does not conduct or condone torture, nor does it transfer anyone to other countries for the purpose of torture,” he added.

US intelligence officials confirmed that the CIA had used the compound at Stare Kiejkuty in the past. Speaking generally about the agency’s program, a former senior official said the CIA had never conducted unlawful interrogations.

“We never tortured anyone,” one former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. “We sent them to countries that did torture, but not on this scale.” The official added that many agency staff had strong feelings about the rendition program. “Career people were really opposed to this.” All intelligence sources interviewed said the CIA is no longer operating a rendition or secret detainment program.

Polish intelligence officials declined to comment. Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, the former head of Polish intelligence, told a Polish news agency in 2005, however, that the CIA had access to two internal zones at the Stare Kiejkuty training school. Current and former Polish authorities have adamantly denied that Poland played any role in the clandestine program.

US, United Kingdom invited Poland to join program in 2002
In April 2002, according to British foreign intelligence sources (MI6), senior officials in the Bush and Blair administrations decided that the Bagram base near Kabul in Afghanistan could not operate successfully in the Bush administration’s “no holds barred” policy towards suspected terrorists.

MI6 officials say the two administrations then decided to fly high-value suspected terrorists to secret gulags in Eastern Europe. The CIA-operated flights would pass through the air space of a number of countries – among them Britain, Germany, Spain and Poland. European Union officials and human rights groups would later say these interrogations may have violated the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention against Torture, to which the United States and Poland are both signatories.

After a series of secret meetings chaired by MI6 chief Sir John Scarlett in London and then-CIA Director George Tenet in Washington, Polish intelligence was invited to join the project, British and Polish intelligence sources say.

Authorities singled out a remote and infrequently used airfield in the Northern Polish town of Szymany for transit flights; a near-by Polish intelligence training school at Stare Kiejkuty would be used as an eventual detention-interrogation center for temporary detention and short-term interrogations.

The White House did not return two calls seeking comment. Tenet could not be reached. Rendition programs were first employed by the Clinton administration in order to target suspected elements of al Qaeda. These covert operations, run out of the CIA, were used intermittently and on a limited basis. It was not until the Bush Administration that the use of extraordinary rendition became a matter of policy and was employed on a large scale.

The Szczytno-Szymany Airport
Szczytno-Szymany used to be a military airfield in northeastern Poland, one of many such airstrips that could accept the large Soviet-made military planes of the Warsaw Pact; before that, it had served as an airstrip for German Luftwaffe bombers targeting Warsaw in the Second World War. In 1996, seven years after Poland’s communist government fell, the military airfield was turned into a private company: Airports “Mazury-Szczytno.”

„After the start of Operation Enduring Freedom – everything changed“: Tower @ Szczytno-Szymany

However, traffic wasn’t heavy enough to provide decent income to the state and private owners of the airfield, so motorcycle and car races were organized on the tarmac; small-scale production and repairs also buttressed the company’s budget.

But after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom – the US military campaign against Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks – everything changed. In the years that followed, American planes began arriving from Afghanistan, continuing on to Morocco, Uzbekistan and Guantanamo Bay, according to Szymany locals and airport staff.

Then-Szymany airport manager Mariola Przewlocka told European Union investigators the flights were likely linked with the intelligence complex at Stare Kiejkuty, about 12 miles away from the airport.

Przewlocka said that whenever one of the suspected flights was scheduled to land, “orders were given directly by the regional border guards… emphasizing that the airport authorities should not approach the aircraft and that military staff and services alone” would handle landings.

“Money for the services was paid in cash, sometimes as much as four times the normal charge,” the former airport manager added. “Handling of the passengers aboard was carried out in a remote corner of the Szymany airstrip. People came in and out from four-wheel drive cars with shaded windows.”

The cars were seen traveling to and from the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence facility, where British and Polish intelligence officials say US agents conducted short-term interrogations before shuffling prisoners to other locations.

Przewlocka also spoke in detail with the Chicago Tribune, whose correspondent traveled to Szymany last month.

“Secret prisons” were likely temporary “black sites”
Former European and US intelligence officials indicate that the secret prisons across the European Union, first identified by the Washington Post, are likely not permanent locations, making them difficult to identify.

What some believe was a network of secret prisons was most probably a series of facilities used temporarily by the United States when needed, officials say. Interim “black sites” – secret facilities used for covert activities – can be as small as a room in a government building, which only becomes a black site when a prisoner is brought in for short-term detainment and interrogation.

For example, detainees could be shuffled from a temporary black site in one country to a temporary black site in another country, never staying long enough at either to attract notice. Such an arrangement, sources say, would allow plausible deniability by the host country as well as the US. Investigators looking for a permanent facility would never find one. Such a site, sources say, would have to be near an airport.

Washington-based security expert and president of Global Security John Pike says short-term detention in already existing facilities would be “sensible tradecraft” and a more likely scenario than a network of specific, long term prisons.

“A short-term operation does not develop a big signature and you don’t have a continual parade of people,” said Pike. “When it becomes noticeable, they move it all.” “It’s a shell game,” he added.

Pressure from US and Britain to keep quiet
In the wake of the Washington Post expose, member countries of the European Union began to demand answers.

According to British and Polish intelligence officials, foreign journalists, and EU sources interviewed for this article, the countries participating in the US rendition and detention program and their governments were kept largely out of the loop. Officials say Bush and Blair administration contacts selectively chose politicians in the EU and other countries, keeping their respective governments in the dark.

Having only a select few members of the European Union aware of the program, coupled with the transience of the prison network, made it difficult for European Union investigators to verify allegations of secret detention sites.

A ten-member EU delegation traveled to Poland in November 2006 to investigate Szymany airport and the facility at Stare Kiejstuty. The team’s report indicates that key government officials first agreed to meet with the delegates, but declined to do so after their arrival.

The delegates requested interviews of 20 Polish government officials, journalists and others, but were allowed to speak with only nine. Of those interviewed, only a handful could offer any substantive information.

One of the more interesting interviews came from former Szczytno-Szymany Airport chairman Jerzy Kos. According to the report, Kos stated that at the time the airport was under his authority, it belonged to the Military Property Agency and was leased by his company.

Kos stated that after a Boeing 737 landed on Sept. 22, 2003, a standard military procedure came into force under which Polish Border Guards determined the character of incoming flights and expedited certain arrivals.

Also seen at the Szczytno-Szymany Airport on 25. of March 2003: The Gulfstream V a globe-hopping CIA Business Jet, also known as the „Guantanamo Bay Express,“ tail number N379P. Changed to N8068V (here in Geneva), later became N126CH, registered in Florida and now flying with Wilmington Trust Co Trustee… The shell game.

“The military procedure was a simplified one, including provision for no customs clearance,” Kos told investigators. He said he had “no information about the passengers as procedure was undertaken by soldiers and not the civilian airport staff.”

Kos asserted that during his tenure from 2003 to 2004, Gulfstream planes transferring through the airport were treated as military flights in the same fashion as the Border Guards had handled the Boeing 737 in September 2003.

Air traffic controllers “had been informed by the Warsaw-based Air Traffic Agency that Gulfstream planes would land at the airport by fax,” Kos told investigators. Polish public television journalist Adam Krzykowski added more detail.

Krzykowski alleged that the September 2003 Boeing 737 carried a crew of seven and was joined at the Szymany airfield by five passengers who declared themselves businessmen. According to the EU report, Krzykowski maintained that all twelve “were American citizens.”

“The Boeing flight was not subject to standard border control procedure, but to a … simplified procedure [which] meant that no customs officers were present during the control and passengers were checked only on basis of a list delivered to the Border Guards,” he said. “According to the Border Guards, such a procedure is used when a person has already been checked up on previously.”

The final report of the European Union’s investigation into Poland as well as the other countries alleged to be part of the rendition program can be read here. Most of those the EU sought to question did not cooperate with investigators, including suspected governments, journalists and key officials in the United States.

Dana Priest, the Washington Post reporter who received a Pulitzer Prize for her article exposing the CIA’s secret detention centers, declined to speak with EU investigators.

“The Post never allows its reporters to testify to government inquiries no matter what government it is, so there was nothing unusual in that regard,” Priest said Monday.

The only member of the Bush Administration given leave to discuss the program with the EU was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said she expected American allies to co-operate and keep quiet about sensitive anti-terrorism operations.”

The Reopening of Szymany Airport
The “prime-time” for Szymany International Airport seems to have ended in 2006, when the investigation by the European Parliament was finished without a clear result or definitive proof of “CIA secret prisons” existing in Poland.

Polish officials refused to cooperate and vehemently denied any role in the CIA program. The airport company had to suspend its activities, due to a dispute over the ownership of the Szczytno-Szymany airfield.

In November 2006, the company signed a lease agreement with the Military Property Agency, which still owns the land and the facilities. This agreement opened the way for financing of the airport by the regional administration and the Polish government.

The Szymany airfield, now in civilian hands and allegedly free of “rendition flights,” will soon become a regional airport. Its beautiful location in the Masurian Lakes Region will likely kindle its development, and the fame of its history surrounding secret CIA flights could certainly become an attractive tourist-catching slogan.

Muriel Kane contributed research for this article and John Byrne contributed reporting.

This article was first published @ Raw Story

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Stephan Fuchs – Terry Nichols, der Mitverschwörer beim Anschlag auf das Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City vom 19. April 1995 hat unter eidestaatlicher Aussage vor einem Gericht in Utah erklärt, dass ein hochrangiger FBI Agent, Larry Potts, den zum Tode verurteilten Timothy McVeigh zum Anschlag angeführt habe.

Hilfe vom FBI?

Der FBI Agent und andere Mitverschwörer würden, so Nichols vor Gericht, von der Regierung geschützt um der Verantwortung zu entgehen. Dokumente die die Aussagen von Nichols stützen würden, sind indes aufgrund des Personenschutzes versiegelt worden und sind somit nicht zugänglich.

Der Richter in Utah, das FBI und das Justizdepartement in Washington verweigerten eine Stellungsnahme gegenüber örtlichen Journalisten, während Nichols keine Gründe angab, weshalb die Regierung beim Anschlag die Führung gehabt habe.

Terry Nichols, der eine lebenslange Haftstrafe im Supermax Gefängnis ADX Florence in Colorado verbringt sagte, er möchte endlich einen Schlussstrich unter die Tragödie setzen und somit den Überlebenden des Terroranschlages helfen. Der Anschlag kostete 168 Menschen, darunter 15 Kindern eines Kindergartens im ersten Stock des Gebäudes das Leben. Die Hinterbliebenen sollen nun, so seine Ausführungen, endlich die Wahrheit erfahren. Im Jahre 2004 schrieb er an den damaligen Justizminister John Ashcroft mit der Bitte, den Ermittlern bei der Identifizierung sämtlicher beteiligter Personen helfen zu können und so der Wahrheit über das „Oklahoma Bombing“ gerecht zu werden. Er bekam weder von Ashcroft, noch von der Untersuchungsbehörde und des Justizapparates eine Antwort.

Beim damaligen Anschlag wurden nur Nichols und McVeith verurteilt, obwohl viele unabhängige Untersuchungen und Nichols immer wieder beteuern, dass mehrere Personen am Anschlag beteiligt gewesen sein mussten. Laut Nichols Aussagen erzählte ihm McVeigh, er sei für undercover Operationen des Militärs rekrutiert worden und dass McVeight verärgert gewesen sei, dass die Auswahl des Zielgebäudes kurz vor dem Anschlag gewechselt worden sei. Im Ärger damals, habe McVeigh ihm auch den Namen des FBI Führungsagenten gesagt.

Allein schon bei der Produktion der Bombe muss McVeight externe Hilfe gehabt haben. Die Bombe die die beiden Attentäter einen Tag vor dem Anschlag produzierten war, so Nichols, nicht jene Bombe die das Gebäude zum Einsturz brachte. „Zur Produktion einer solchen Bombe hatten wir nicht das Wissen.“

Bob Drogin & John Goetz – The L.A. Times identifies three fliers facing kidnapping charges in Germany related to a 2003 counter-terrorism mission.

The forecast called for heavy snow on the route home, so the three pilots who had just flown a covert CIA-sponsored „extraordinary rendition“ flight were forced to stay an extra night at the Gran Melia Victoria, a luxury hotel overlooking the marina on the island of Majorca.

Up in Room 552, the pilot who called himself Capt. James Fairing picked up the phone at 2:28 in the afternoon and dialed his tree-shaded home in a subdivision carved out of pine forests here in Clayton, about 15 miles southeast of Raleigh. He also called his employer, a North Carolina-based air charter service that long has worked for the CIA.

Fairing’s copilot, who registered as Eric Matthew Fain, reached for the phone in his room and called a woman back home with whom he owns a 22-foot speedboat and who also flies missions for the CIA. The third pilot from the stranded flight carried a U.S. passport issued to Kirk James Bird. The passport photo shows a balding, middle-age man with a broad smile.

The names they used were all aliases, but The Times confirmed their real identities from government databases and visited their homes this month after a German court in January ordered the arrest of the three „ghost pilots“ and 10 other alleged members of the CIA’s special renditions unit on charges of kidnapping and causing serious bodily harm to Khaled Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, three years ago.

Charged under aliases
None of the pilots responded to repeated requests for comment left with family members and on their home telephones. The Times is not publishing their real names because they have been charged only under their aliases.

Relying on the operatives‘ passport numbers, hotel records, credit card bills and aviation records, German prosecutors are seeking to properly identify the 13 Americans in a high-profile case that has upset relations between Washington and Berlin and caused a political scandal in Germany over whether government officials sanctioned the CIA operation.

Elsewhere in Europe, legal and parliamentary investigations have focused a harsh spotlight on the CIA’s program to abduct suspected terrorists and ferry them to secret sites for interrogation, operations known variously as „black renditions“ or „extraordinary renditions.“

On Friday, an Italian judge issued arrest warrants for 26 suspected CIA operatives for allegedly abducting a radical Muslim cleric outside his mosque in Milan in February 2003 and delivering him to Egypt, where his lawyer says he was tortured. The trial is set for June 8 in Milan.

All the Americans charged, including the top two CIA officers in Italy at the time, have departed the country, but Italian law allows defendants to be tried in absentia. None of the aliases used in Italy match those in the German case, although one of the pilots may have been involved in both incidents.

One former CIA operation officer who was involved in the Italian case at CIA headquarters, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case is classified, said he and his colleagues were increasingly nervous about traveling in Europe for fear of getting swept up in the investigations. He said he checked with a contact at the Italian intelligence service for reassurance that he would not be arrested.

Seized in error
According to Masri’s account, he was detained by local authorities while crossing from Serbia into Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003. Three weeks later, seven or eight men in masks stripped him naked, put him in a diaper and jumpsuit, drugged him and then chained him, spread-eagle and blindfolded, to the floor of a Boeing“>L.A. Times

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National Security Whistleblowers – The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition has obtained a copy of an official complaint filed by a veteran FBI Special Agent, Gilbert Graham, with the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-OIG). SA Graham’s protected disclosures report the violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in conducting electronic surveillance of high-profile U.S. public officials.

Before his retirement in 2002, SA Gilbert Graham worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) Squad NS-24. One of the main areas of Mr. Graham’s counterintelligence investigations involved espionage activities by Turkish officials and agents in the United States. On April 2, 2002, Graham filed with the DOJ-OIG a classified protected disclosure, which provided a detailed account of FISA violations involving misuse of FISA warrants to engage in domestic surveillance. In his unclassified report SA Graham states: “It is the complainant’s reasonable belief that the request for ELSUR [electronic surveillance] coverage was a subterfuge to collect evidentiary information concerning public corruption matters.” Graham blew the whistle on this illegal behavior, but the actions were covered up by the Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s office.

The unclassified version of SA Graham’s Official Report.

The report filed by SA Graham bolsters another FBI whistleblower’s case that became public several months after Graham’s official filing with the Justice Department in 2002. Sibel Edmonds, former FBI Language Specialist, also worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO), and her assignments included the translations of Turkish Counterintelligence documents and audiotapes, some of which were part of espionage investigations led by SA Graham.

After she filed her complaint with the DOJ-OIG and Congress, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Court proceedings in Edmonds’ case were blocked by the assertion of the State Secrets Privilege by then Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Congress gagged and prevented from investigating her case through retroactive re-classification of documents by DOJ.

Edmonds’ complaint included allegations of illegal activities by Turkish organizations and their agents in the United States, and the involvement of certain elected and appointed U.S. officials in the Department of State, Pentagon, and the U.S. Congress in these activities. In its September 2005 issue, Vanity Fair ran a comprehensive piece on Edmonds’ case by reporter David Rose, in which several former and current congressional and Justice Department officials identified former House Speaker Dennis Hastert as being involved in illegal activities with the Turkish organizations and personnel targeted in FBI investigations.

In addition, Rose reported: “…much of what Edmonds reportedly heard seemed to concern not state espionage but criminal activity. There was talk, she told investigators, of laundering the profits of large-scale drug deals and of selling classified military technologies to the highest bidder.” In January 2005, DOJ-OIG released an unclassified summary of its investigation into Edmonds‘ termination. The report concluded that Edmonds was fired for reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the agency’s translation program, and that many of her allegations were supported by convincing evidence.

Another Former Veteran FBI Counterintelligence and Espionage Specialist at FBI Headquarters in Washington DC also filed similar reports with DOJ-OIG and several congressional offices regarding violations of FISA implementation and the covering up of several espionage cases involving FBI Language Specialists and public corruption cases by the Bureau. The cases reported by this whistleblower corroborate those reported by SA Graham and Sibel Edmonds.

In an interview with NSWBC investigators the former FBI Specialist, who wished to remain anonymous, stated: “…you are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure. No wonder they invoked the state secrets privilege in Edmonds’ case.”
William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor noted that,”These abuses of power are precisely why we must pay attention to whistleblowers. Preservation of the balance of powers between the branches of government increasingly relies on information provided by whistleblowers, especially in the face of aggressive and expanding executive power. Through illegal surveillance members of Congress and other officials may be controlled by the executive branch, thereby dissolving the matrix of our democracy. The abuse of two powers of secrecy, FISA and the state secrets privilege, are working hand in hand to subvert the Constitution. In an abominably perverse arrangement, the abuse of FISA is being covered up by abuse of the state secrets privilege. Only whistleblowers and the congressional and judicial oversight their revelations spawn can bring our system back into balance.”
Several civil liberties and whistleblowers organizations have joined Edmonds and NSWBC in urging congress to hold public hearing on Edmonds’ case, including the supporting cases of SA Graham and other FBI witnesses, and the erroneous use of state secrets privilege by the executive branch to cover up its own illegal conduct. The petition endorsed by these groups is expected to be released to public in the next few days.

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
Kill The Messenger: Sibel Edmonds

Moskau – Nach dem tödlichen Fenstersturz eines russischen Journalisten haben Kollegen und Verwandte Zweifel an der Selbstmordtheorie geäußert. Iwan Safronow, der seit 1997 für die Tageszeitung «Kommersant» geschrieben hatte, war am Freitag in Moskau aus einem Fenster im fünften Stock seines Hauses zu Tode gestürzt. Die Staatsanwaltschaft ermittelt in der Angelegenheit. «Die Untersuchungen konzentrieren sich immer mehr darauf, dass es Selbstmord war, aber alle, die Iwan Safronow gekannt haben, lehnen diese Theorie mit Entschiedenheit ab», berichtete «Kommersant» am Montag.

Mehrere Journalisten äußerten den Verdacht, dass Safronow ermordet worden sein könnte. Er hatte die Behörden den Angaben zufolge mit seinen kritischen Berichten verärgert und wurde wiederholt vom Geheimdienst befragt, der ihm Geheimnisverrat vorwarf. Er konnte jedoch nachweisen, dass seine Berichte immer auf offen zugänglichen Quellen basierten. Im vergangenen Dezember berichtete er über den dritten gescheiterten Testversuch einer neuen Interkontinentalrakete in Folge, den die Behörden nie offiziell bestätigten.

Russland zählt zu den gefährlichsten Ländern für Journalisten neben dem Irak und Algerien. Seit dem vergangenen Jahr wurden 13 russische Journalisten umgebracht, wie das Komitee zum Schutz von Journalisten in New York mitteilte. Aufmerksamkeit erlangte vor allem der Mord an Anna Politkowskaja im Oktober 2006. Die Journalistin hatte harsche Kritik an Menschenrechtsverstößen in Tschetschenien geübt.

New York / Human Rights Watch– Die US-Regierung soll über alle vermissten Gefangenen Rechenschaft ablegen, die vom amerikanischen Geheimdienst CIA gefangen gehalten worden sind, so Human Rights Watch in einem veröffentlichten Bericht.

In dem 50-seitigen Bericht „Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention” wird detailliert ein geheimes CIA-Gefängnis von einem ehemaligen palästinensischen Häftling beschrieben, der letztes Jahr freigelassen wurde. In einem offenen Brief forderte Human Rights Watch außerdem den Präsidenten der USA, George W. Bush, auf, Informationen über das Schicksal und das Verbleiben der vermissten Gefangenen offen zu legen.

„Präsident Bush teilte uns mit, dass die letzten 14 Gefangenen des Geheimdienstes nach Guantánamo verlegt worden sind, aber es gibt zahlreiche andere vom Geheimdienst „verschleppte“ Gefangene, deren Schicksal immer noch unbekannt ist“, so Joanne Mariner, Direktorin des Programms Terrorismus und Terrorismusbekämpfung von Human Rights Watch. „Die Frage ist: Was ist mit diesen Personen geschehen und wo sind sie jetzt?“

Anfang September waren 14 Gefangene von einem geheimen CIA-Gefängnis in Militärgewahrsam nach Guantánamo Bay gebracht worden. In einer Fernsehrede am 6. September teilte Präsident Bush mit, dass nach dieser Verlegung keine weiteren Gefangenen mehr in Gewahrsam des Geheimdienstes seien.

Der ehemalige CIA-Häftling Marwan Jabour hat Human Rights Watch von weiteren Personen berichtet, die sich in CIA-Gefangenschaft befanden, deren derzeitiges Verbleiben allerdings unbekannt sei. Jabour sah einen dieser Männer, den algerischen Terrorismusverdächtigen Yassir al-Jazeeri, noch im Juli 2006 in CIA-Gefangenschaft.

„Die Bush-Regierung muss vollständig Auskunft über jeden geben, der in CIA-Gefängnissen „verschwunden” ist, einschließlich der Namen, wo sie festgehalten wurden und wann sie die US-Gefangenschaft verlassen haben“, so Mariner.

Der Brief von Human Rights Watch an Bush enthält zwei Listen mit Namen vermisster Gefangener. Die erste Liste nennt 16 Personen, von denen Human Rights Watch annimmt, dass sie sich in CIA-Gefangenschaft befanden, deren derzeitiger Verbleib aber unbekannt ist. Die zweite Liste nennt 22 Personen, die eventuell in CIA-Gefängnissen gefangen gehalten wurden und deren derzeitiger Verbleib unbekannt ist.

Human Rights Watch ist besorgt darüber, was mit den vermissten Gefangenen passiert sein könnte. Eine Möglichkeit ist, dass die USA einige von ihnen in ausländische Gefängnisse verlegt hat, in denen sie weiterhin unter der Kontrolle der CIA sind.

Eine andere beunruhigende Möglichkeit ist, dass die Gefangenen an Orte verlegt wurden, wo sie gefoltert werden. Einige der vermissten Gefangenen könnten eventuell auch in ihre Heimatländer zurückgeschickt worden sein, unter anderem nach Algerien, Ägypten, Libyen und Syrien, wo ihnen Folter droht.

Der neue Bericht bietet die bisher umfangreichste Schilderung des Lebens in einem CIA-Gefängnis sowie neue Informationen über 38 mögliche Gefangene. Der Bericht macht deutlich, dass die Behandlung dieser Gefangenen durch die CIA „erzwungenes Verschwinden“ darstellt, was laut internationalem Recht verboten ist.

Marwan Jabour wurde im Mai 2004 von pakistanischen Behörden festgenommen und über einen Monat in einem geheimen Gefängnis in Islamabad festgehalten und schwer misshandelt. Dieses Gefängnis wurde von amerikanischem und pakistanischem Personal geführt. Im Juni wurde er in ein anderes geheimes Gefängnis geflogen, von dem er meint, es befinde sich in Afghanistan. Hier kam fast das gesamte Personal aus den USA.

Seine Kleidung wurde ihm bei seiner Ankunft weggenommen und er blieb für eineinhalb Monate nackt, auch während der Verhöre durch weibliches Personal und bei Filmaufnahmen. Er wurde so eng an die Wand seiner kleinen Zelle gekettet, dass er nicht aufstehen konnte. Er musste schmerzhafte Stresspositionen einnehmen, in denen er Atemschwierigkeiten hatte. Man sagte ihm, dass er in eine „Hunde-Box“ gesteckt würde, wenn er nicht mitarbeite.

Von den etwas mehr als zwei Jahren, die Jabour in diesem geheimen Gefängnis festgehalten wurde, verbrachte er die meiste Zeit allein in einer fensterlosen Zelle und hatte fast nur Kontakt zu den Wärtern. Obwohl er sich immer große Sorgen um seine Frau und seine drei jungen Töchter machte, erlaubte man ihm nicht einmal, ihnen einen Brief zu schicken, um ein Lebenszeichen von sich zu geben.

„Es war ein Grab”, teilte Jabour Human Rights Watch später mit. „Ich dachte mein Leben sei vorbei.“

Die Frau eines anderen ehemaligen CIA-Gefangenen, dessen Verbleib immer noch unbekannt ist, erzählte Human Rights Watch, dass sie ihre vier Kinder in Bezug auf das „Verschwinden“ ihres Mannes anlog. Sie sagte, sie könne es nicht übers Herz bringen, ihnen zu sagen, dass sie nichts über seinen Aufenthaltsort wisse.

„Ich hoffe, ich kann ihnen wenigstens sagen, wo und unter welchen Bedingungen ihr Vater festgehalten wird, falls sie eines Tages von seiner Gefangenschaft erfahren“, sagte sie.

Erzwungenes Verschwinden beinhaltet willkürliche, geheime und isolierte Inhaftierung und stellt ein ernstes Risiko für das Recht auf Leben und für Schutz vor Folter und anderen Misshandlungen dar. Wie diese Fälle deutlich machen, führt erzwungenes Verschwinden auch bei der Familie des „Verschwundenen“ zu erheblichem psychischen Schmerz und Schaden.

Human Rights Watch zeigte sich sehr besorgt über Präsident Bushs Aussage, dass der Military Commissions Act aus dem Jahr 2006 der Regierung erlaubt, das geheime Gefängnisprogramm der CIA wieder aufzunehmen. Human Rights Watch forderte die Bush-Regierung auf, geheime Inhaftierungen und Befragungen unter Gewaltandrohung im Kampf gegen den Terror abzulehnen. Inhaftierungen und Verhöre durch die CIA sollen endgültig beendet werden.

„Das CIA-Programm und seine Erfinder haben dem Ruf, der moralischen Stellung und Integrität der USA erheblichen Schaden zugefügt“, sagte Mariner. „Es ist Zeit für Präsident Bush, dieses Programm zu beenden und Schritte zu unternehmen, den angerichteten Schaden zu beheben.“

Dies ist ein Bericht von Human Rights Watch
Australischer Guantanamo Häftling Hicks als erster vor US Militärtribunal.
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Cooperativeresearch – 1994 – December 15: A suspected terrorism financier will enter the US with apparent CIA help. Starting sometime in 1994, Philippine investigator Colonel Rodolfo Mendoza looks into foreign support for Islamic militant groups in the Philippines.

He is well positioned to do this because he is the handler for Edwin Angeles, an undercover government operative who is the second in command of the militant group Abu Sayyaf. Mendoza combines “hundreds of wiretaps and countless man-hours of surveillance into a 175-page report…,” which includes a watch list of more than 100 names of Arab nationals that he believes are connected to international terrorist groups. [Ressa, 2003] His investigation has a special focus on Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden’s brother-in-law. Mendoza later recalls, “In 1994 up to 1995, my unit [tracked] Khalifa [with] tight investigation and surveillance.”

Mendoza believes Khalifa is running a front to fund the training of fighters for the Abu Sayyaf. [CNN, 11/24/2004] According to a 1999 book by Richard Labeviere, near the conclusion of this investigation, the Philippine government expedites an order expelling Khalifa from the country. Khalifa gets a visa to the US through the US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with the help of the CIA. The CIA had a history of using that consulate to give US visas to radical Muslim militants dating back to the 1980s.

Khalifa travels to the US around the start of December 1994. On December 15, Mendoza’s report is secretly released, though it is not clear if or when US intelligence gets a copy. The next day, Khalifa is arrested in the US. [Labeviere, 1999, pp. 365]

Onlineredaktion – Die CIA steht zu ihren Agenten und Agentinnen. Auch wenn sie Straffällig geworden sind. Allerdings ist Italien verständlicherweise auch nicht daran interessiert, das Verhältnis mit den amerikanischen Partnern unnötig zu belasten.

Der Rechtsberater des amerikanischen Aussenministeriums, John Bellinger, sagte am Mittwoch in Brüssel, es gebe keinen Auslieferungsantrag Italiens. Und falls Italien einen solchen Antrag stelle, «werden wir keine US-Agenten ausliefern».

Ein Mailänder Richter hatte 26 Amerikaner wegen der Entführung eines muslimischen Geistlichen nach Ägypten angeklagt. Der Imam war nach Ägypten verschleppt und dort nach eigenen Angaben gefoltert worden. Die amerikanischen Bürger – die meisten sind offenbar CIA-Mitarbeiter – sollen sich gemeinsam mit italienischen Agenten verantworten. Das werden sie aber – wen wundert’s – nie tun.