Intelligence Agencies Undermine Nuclear Smuggling Trial

An engineer is on trial in Germany for allegedly attempting to help Libya develop a nuclear bomb. But the network the man was allegedly part of was under surveillance by intelligency agencies, with the CIA getting involved early on. The Swiss government has even gone so far as to eliminate evidence by secretly shredding thousands of documents.

The story should really begin in Stuttgart, the southern Germany city where the case has now been on trial for the past two weeks, where defendant Gotthard Lerch, 65, can be seen on Thursdays and Fridays in Courtroom 18, and where an international smuggling ring, which sought to sell the makings of a nuclear bomb to Libya between 1997 and 2003, is acquiring a face. It's the wrong face if you go by Lerch's defense lawyers, but the right one, according to the federal prosecutors. The face of the defendant, at any rate, is that of an elegant older man with grey hair and an occasional smirk. He stands accused of having been part of a ring of which US President George W. Bush once said he would capture and eliminate, "each and every one."

A foreign intelligence agent appearing incognito at a witness hearing in one of Germany's highest courts -- now that says more about the cause than the case being made in Stuttgart. Something that would be unthinkable in any other trial is par for the course here: The intelligence agencies seem to have their fingers in every pie, raising the same dilemma that forced a court in the southwestern German city of Mannheim to throw out the first case against Lerch in 2006. In those proceedings, the investigators repeatedly withheld documents, claiming reasons of national security, while in fact the real reason had more to do with the paranoia of intelligence agencies.

The current case, in Stuttgart, is also groaning under a discrepancy that couldn't be greater. On the one hand, you have the constitutional state with its criminal code, and the other you have the American and British intelligence agencies, which have only one objective in a matter like this: a success.

Given the complexity of a technology in which thousands of perfectly synchronized centrifuges are needed to constantly enrich uranium to an ever-higher level, drawings alone were not enough to guarantee his customers a bomb. To overcome this hurdle, Khan offered a more comprehensive service: the delivery of a complete system with training included.

Khan assembled a team of old confidants and assigned a specific task to each of them so that Gadhafi's components could be produced around the world. At the top of the hierarchy was a confidant of Khan's, Sri Lankan businessman Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, who acted as a business manager of sorts, responsible for payments and contracts. He also appointed several division managers, who may not even have known of each other's existence. They were comprised of the Swiss Tinner family of engineers, including Friedrich Tinner and his sons Urs and Marco, who were apparently responsible for centrifuge parts; Briton Peter Griffin, a specialist in the procurement of tool-making machines; and Lerch, whose job, as the prosecution claims, was to obtain the pipes that connect the centrifuges. Lerch's source for the pipes was Gerhard Wisser, a German national living in South Africa, with whom he had been doing business for decades.

The names on the roster of the global plot included Khan, Tahir, Tinner, Griffin, Lerch and Wisser. The only problem was that not everyone plotted on the same side. The Tinner family, in particular, played both sides, collecting payments from Khan and from the CIA.

According to the Swiss government, the seized Tinner files, which have since been shredded in Switzerland, contained plans for building nuclear weapons, gas centrifuges and guided weapons systems as well as a contract Tinner's son Marco had signed with the alleged US company. Under the contract, the Tinners agreed to supply the Washington-based company with "technical know-how" in the "field of vacuum technology and valve design, as well as design specifications for vacuum plants." In other words, everything a Libyan dictator would need to fuel his megalomaniacal ambitions. The Americans showed a willingness to pay a respectable sum for the information the small Swiss family owned company planned to deliver through the five-year contract. The first payments came in 2003. At first the Tinners' bills were for amounts as modest as 2,000 Swiss francs ($1,917), but by May 2004, Marco Tinner was sending the family's new friends in Washington a bill for $2 million (€1.3 million). Could the money have been a reward for information that enabled the CIA to crack the ring in 2003?   (To continue reading go from this excerpt to page 2)

Excerpted from length 2 page article from  Speigel Online International at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,560131,00.html
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By JEREMY OLSHAN 

Excerpted from lengthy artilce from the New York Post located at: http://www.nypost.com/seven/07212008/news/regionalnews/train_ing_day_for_jihadists_120839.htm

July 21, 2008
Posted: 4:42 am
July 21, 2008

Allah board!

An Islamic group plans to blitz 1,000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks.

The group says its mission is to explain the true nature of Islam to non-Muslims who believe the religion is bent on acts of violence - but Siraj Wahhaj, the inflammatory imam who appears in a promotional YouTube video for the project, has defended convicted bomb-plotters and called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists."

US Attorney Mary Jo White even named Wahhaj one of 170 unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the thwarted plan to blow up a slew of buildings.

"In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam," Wahhaj said in one of his sermons.

The stark, black-and-white ads of the Subway Project promote Islam with the goals of clearing up long-held misconceptions about the faith and reaching out to those interested in becoming Muslim, according to the Islamic Circle of North America, the group behind the campaign.

 A schoolboy aged 12 has been identified as an al-Qaeda inspired extremist after sending beheading videos to his classmates, police have disclosed. 

 Blond, white schoolboy is al-Qa'eda extremist, say police

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
Last Updated: 8:06PM BST 25 Jun 2008

Excerpted from The Telegraph, located at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2192715/Blonde,-white-schoolboy-is-al-Qaandrsquoeda-extremist,-say-police.html

Anti-terrorism chiefs have said the example revealed how violent extremism is spreading “like a virus infecting young minds”.

Pictured: Smiling preacher of hate Abu Qatada enjoying an £800,000 home and a life of benefits

• Abu Qatada, Al Qaeda's ambassador in Europe, strolls along a busy London street fondling his prayer beads.
  

This is the first photograph of the greying 47-year-old - said to be one of the world's most dangerous terrorist suspects - since he was released on bail from a high-security prison after the courts ordered that he could not be sent home to Jordan because his human rights would have been breached.

 It was taken on July 7, hours after the families and friends of the 52 innocent people killed in the London transport suicide bombings three years ago remembered their loved ones at a memorial service.

The radical cleric was freed three weeks ago when a judge ruled that there were no grounds to detain him after previous attempts to deport him to Jordan, where he was convicted of terror attacks and bomb plots, were defeated in the courts.

Described by another judge as 'a truly dangerous individual', he remains an iconic figure for many supporters of jihad.

Lawyers successfully argued in the Court of Appeal that Qatada could stay because evidence used against him in any prosecution in Jordan might have been obtained by torture - a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The fanatical preacher, who was 20 stone but slimmed down on prison food, was pictured on a shopping trip near the £800,000 home he shares with his wife and children.

Exact details of the location where the Qatada family are living on benefits of an estimated £50,000 a year are protected by court orders.

Enlarge  

Firebrand cleric Abu Qatada, freed three weeks ago, strolls near his London home. Circled is the electronic tag he wears as a bail condition

Despite being under virtual house arrest, the cleric appeared relaxed as he walked to nearby shops occasionally stroking his bushy, greying beard.

At one stage, he shared a joke with a woman about his brown prayer beads, laughing and then beaming after her comments.

Later, they were replaced in his right hand by a six-pack of Diet Coke bottles while under his left arm he clutched a bumper-pack of toilet rolls.

The father of five has claimed incapacity benefit for a bad back but on Monday he was wearing a green rucksack in case he needed to carry extra goods.

Just above the battered white training shoe on his right foot, and partially concealed by a sock, is the electronic tag he must wear as part of his strict bail conditions imposed by the Special Immigration Appeals Tribunal.

Qatada is allowed to leave his rented four-bedroom semi for one hour a day after 10am and another hour from 2pm.

Other restrictions include not using a mobile telephone - although he can use a landline - not using a computer and not having any contact, directly or indirectly, with a list of terrorists including Osama Bin Laden.

Neighbours who came forward soon after Qatada was freed spoke of their outrage over having such a man in the area while British soldiers are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The decision to free Qatada has left Britain's anti-terror laws in tatters and the taxpayer facing a bill of tens of thousands of pounds to keep the preacher under surveillance by the security services.

Then there are the handouts - he receives an estimated £150 a week in incapacity benefit while his 45-year-old wife is said to be entitled to child benefits, income support, housing and council tax credits which exceed £800 each week.

According to experts, the benefits are broken down into £499.62 in housing and £81.55 for four of the family's children who are under 18.

The family is also said to pick up around £210 in income support - a slightly lower figure than usual because of Qatada's incapacity benefit payment.

Of the five children, only those aged 17,14, nine and six are eligible for the child benefit payments. Their oldest, who is 19, is not entitled to a handout.

The couple are exempt from paying the £2,283 yearly council tax bill on their home - it is picked up by the authorities. Currently, similar properties in the same road as Qatada are being leased for £620 a week.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has appealed against the decision not to deport Qatada to Jordan while the Conservatives have said it is 'offensive' that he cannot be thrown out.

The rulings mean that - despite Tony Blair's promise in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks that the 'rules of the game have changed' - not a single international terrorist has been forcibly removed from this country.

Would any other country treat him quite so well?

MI5 targets four Met police officers 'working as Al Qaeda spies'

MI5 are said to have homed in on the the "sleeper" agents passing secrets from Scotland Yard to the terror group only in recent weeks.

The suspected spies are believed to have used methods similar to those employed by the IRA in the 1970s as they infiltrated the police and the Army in Northern Ireland.

They are said to fear the four could have already accessed sensitive information about secret operations to root out terror cells planning further attacks in the UK. Scotland Yard refused to discuss allegations that a sleeper cell of Al Qaeda spies is being kept under secret service surveillance after infiltrating the Metropolitan Police.

According to the News of the World, in the past few weeks MI5 agents have identified four officers suspected of passing secrets from the force.All four are allegedly Asians living in London and are feared to have links with Islamic extremists in Britain and worldwide terrorist organisations.MI5 bosses reportedly fear the moles may have been planted to keep Al Qaeda informed of anti-terror raids, and may have already accessed sensitive information about ongoing operations.

Secret service agents are said to be monitoring the suspects, who work at different London police stations. A Yard spokesman said: "All police officers and police staff, upon joining the Metropolitan Police Service and during their careers undergo a range of security checks.

"These are robust and vary accordingly to the type and sensitivity of the individual postings.

"We take matters of security very seriously and if any issues arise about individuals, they may be subject to further assessment. "This could lead to restrictions being put in place relating to where an individual may work within the organisation or could lead to their dismissal.""If there are people within the police force feeding information to terror groups this needs to be stopped.

"Since the names came to light there has been a non-stop effort to find out everything about their backgrounds." The officers' names apparently emerged during a low-profile investigation into police force infiltration which has been going on since the July 2005 London bombings.

Last year MI5 believed there were up to eight police staff—uniform and civilians with links to extremist groups. Now agents, helped by anti-terror police, are understood to be watching the four suspects - who work at different police stations around London - around the clock while searching for the vital evidence needed to make arrests. The officers' every move at work is being monitored along with their phone calls, it was claimed. Homeland security agents are reportedly sifting through their bank account transactions.

MI5 experts are also understood to be building a family tree for each one and trying to put together a picture of their links to their home countries. Their names are being cross-referred with lists of men who have been to terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

What is clear is that the infiltration methods used by the officers under suspicion bear hallmarks of the IRA in the past. The police source said: "The IRA tried to infiltrate and they succeeded to a certain extent. "By just slipping under the radar it takes suspicion away from you. "If you are a young Pakistani of English origin and you feel you want to do something for the cause of Islam, what better way than to join the enemy and attack from within?"

Explosive Pickles By MARLISE SIMONS  Published: May 5, 1996

So on March 14, when Belgian customs officials in the port of Antwerp saw an Iranian ship unloading a big cargo container of pickles bound for Germany, they searched it, while the ship proceeded to Hamburg.They expected to find drugs.

What they found instead were three large wooden crates filled with weapon parts. Once assembled, the parts made up what investigators called an unusual weapon "custom-made for terrorism."

Nuclear Trail -- A special report.; A Vast Smuggling Network Feeds Iran's Arms Program

But the airport, which because of its size operates largely beyond the scrutiny of the customs authorities, is believed to be one of dozens of transit points used by the Iranian Government to smuggle, from Europe to Iran, weapons parts and advanced technology used to develop nuclear weapons, Western intelligence officials say.

Some intelligence officials say they believe that despite an embargo imposed by the West, Iran may have a nuclear capacity in as little as five years.

Intelligence officials say the airport is part of an elaborate network set up by Iran's Islamic Government throughout Europe, Russia and the Central Asian republics, one that is apparently also being used to funnel weapons to the Croatian Government and Muslims in Bosnia.

The airport, which is about 35 miles north of Hamburg, is owned by three Iranians who are reputed to be among the biggest arms dealers in Europe, the officials say.

And some German officials say they now suspect that some Iranians who have used the airport for arms trafficking, backed by the Teheran Government, may be implicated in the mysterious death in 1987 in a Geneva hotel room of Uwe Barschel, the former Premier of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, where the airport is located.

Intelligence agencies are so overwhelmed by the scope of the Iranian smuggling operation that, they said, it is almost impossible to monitor. The clandestine equipment, they said, is often broken down into nearly unidentifiable parts and shipped out from different countries and by different routes.

"It is almost impossible to trace the material being smuggled out by the Iranians," a senior German intelligence official said. "Unless you know exactly what type of technology they are trying to build, the smugglers can collect various parts, from various sources that mask the Iranians' intent.

"The Iranians spread their acquisitions program over a huge area. We were able to stop one recent acquisition only because we obtained the key numbers of the component they wanted to build on a computer disk. Our best hope now is that we can delay the process. We will not be able to stop it."

Iranian officials deny that Teheran is trying to build a nuclear arsenal. Iran's Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, has called for all nuclear weapons programs in the Middle East to be disclosed and has chastised Israel for refusing to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed.

German intelligence officials said they had mounted an ambitious program to halt the flow of arms-related technology to Iran. "There was no way the Germans were ever willing to provide German technology to help the Iranians," Bernd Schmidbauer, the Chancellery Minister in charge of intelligence coordination, said when asked about Iran's smuggling network. "This has been our position and is adhered to strictly."

Intelligence officials said the Iranian effort to acquire nuclear weapons technology mirrors the push by President Saddam Hussein to build a nuclear bomb in Iraq during the last 15 years. The Iranians use many of the old Iraqi smuggling routes and contacts, officials said. But, they added, Iran, unlike Iraq, is able to mask many acquisitions because of its nuclear energy program. The Route A Twisted Path Used by Smugglers

The small airport, tucked in rolling pasture land and with a 2,000-foot runway, would seem to be of little use to the Iranians. It is built for light single and twin-engine aircraft that cannot fly directly to Iran.

But liberal European Community aviation guidelines permit civilian airports to operate free from scrutiny by customs authorities. And planes under 7.5 tons are not required to report flight destinations. These two factors drew the Iranians to the airport almost a decade ago, although the Iranians did not purchase the airport until 1993.

Last August, after two Iranians with close ties to the airport were arrested trying to smuggle heroin and opium into Germany, the Government forbade the planes from leaving the country. But German officials say it has proved almost impossible to enforce the ban.

German companies tied to the airport have bought weapons material and technology for the Iranian Government by falsifying end-user documents for nearly a decade, according to internal company documents. These small European companies, many of which are owned by Iranians, ship material in long, circuitous routes to Iran.

In 1993, with the airport in disrepair and losing money under German management, it was bought by Mehdi Kashani, an Iranian arms dealer, along with Mussa Khayer Habibollahi, a former Deputy Oil Minister of Iran. Mr. Habibollahi, who operated out of London until he disappeared from view a few weeks ago, offered the former owners $8 million for the airport.

The price was twice what the German owners, Heinz-Erich Schreitmuller and Dr. Reinhard Uhlig, a Hamburg dentist, had paid four years before.

The two men agreed to stay on and work for the new management, company records show.

The management of the airport was turned over to an Iranian, Nick Ahmed Semnar. All of the Iranians, wanted for questioning by the German authorities in connection with the airport's operations, are no longer in Germany. Mr. Schreitmuller and Dr. Uhlig are also being investigated by the German authorities for arms trafficking to Iran.

The deal included buying up all the related companies at the airport, including Paratec and Nordflug, which holds the license for the airfield, and Nordair, which holds a license from the German civil aviation authority that allows the Iranians to buy aviation technology from German manufacturers without disclosing the final destination. The Operatives Shadowy Network Of Iranians Abroad

Mr. Kashani, 52, trained as a cleric in Iran, lives in Madrid and was first linked to arms smuggling to Iran in 1983, when a shipment of weapons parts was uncovered leaving Portugal for Iran. Mr. Kashani was involved in the Reagan Administration's efforts to send arms to Iran in return for the release of Western hostages held in Lebanon.

In 1992 he was arrested by the Spanish police for trying to ship 200 Klystron amplifiers, used to help guide missiles, to the Iranian Air Force. Intelligence officials say they believe that he works for Mr. Habibollahi, who is believed to oversee the Iranian Government's clandestine arms acquisitions in Europe.

But despite his record, Mr. Kashani continued to operate in Germany until last year. On Aug. 12 two associates, Parvis Sigurdson, 56, and a man identified in court documents only as Mohammed Ali L., 54, were arrested in the parking lot of the Elysee-Hotel in Hamburg trying to sell about 100 pounds of opium to undercover agents.

The narcotics, the Iranians told the agents, would be delivered through the Hartenholm airport. The Iranians, who were arraigned in a Hamburg court in February, were also trying to buy radar components for American-made F-4 fighter planes for the Iranian Air Force, the authorities said.

Mr. Sigurdson, who worked for Mr. Kashani and who carries a Danish passport, was expelled by the Spanish authorities to Denmark last May, on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Bosnia and Croatia.

The ties between arms smuggling and narcotics trafficking are close.

Money from drug sales is often poured back into illegal arms and technology purchases, intelligence officials say.

Mr. Schreitmuller, in a confidential letter dated Oct. 21, 1993, to his bank, said he had been asked to launder about $72 million of drug money for the Iranian owners of the airport. A German arms dealer, Peter Fisher, wanted for questioning because of what the authorities suspected was an attempt to smuggle radioactive material through Hartenholm to Iran, along with the airport manager, Mr. Semnar, met with Mr. Schreitmuller on Sept. 2, 1993, in a restaurant in Cologne to make the proposal, the letter said. The name of the restaurant was crossed out.

"In the past Mr. Semnar was involved in the transportation of sensitive deliveries to Iran," Mr. Schreitmuller wrote. "He also seems to be involved in international drug trafficking and tried to involve Nordair in Schleswig-Holstein. I rejected these intentions." The Base Route to Iran Starts in Hamburg

Hamburg, a port city of some 1.6 million residents, including 30,000 Iranians, has long been one of the central smuggling points in Europe. Intelligence officials say they believe that the Iranian Embassy in Bonn is the center for Teheran's intelligence operations in Europe.

It is from the embassy, they say, that Iranian agents coordinate plans to acquire illegal weapons and technology, as well as plan the killing of Iranian dissidents. About 60 Iranian dissidents have been killed in Europe and elsewhere since the Islamic Government took power in 1979.

There are many Iranian institutions in Hamburg, including a large Islamic center. The center provides the Iranians, as well as Muslim militants from other countries, with a place to meet and arrange contacts, intelligence officials said. It is also a cover for Iranian agents infiltrated into Europe, they said.

But there are other activities that give the Iranians the cover they need to operate. Iranian ships dock frequently at the port to unload and take on cargo. Every week Iranian truckers make the long drive to Hamburg to deliver carpets and pistachios and return with European goods.

There are three Iranian banks in Hamburg. Iran Air has two direct flights each week to and from Hamburg. And Iranian carpet merchants have built lavish homes and set up some of the finest shops in the city.

Iranians who work at what the authorities consider the fronts for the Teheran Government deny any illegal activity, but they also have little sympathy for Western society.

"If you have a cat and you back the cat into a corner and beat it and abuse it, then the cat will strike back," said a 54-year-old Iranian at the Islamic center, who refused to give his name. "This is what the West is doing to the Muslims of the world. This is why the Muslims fight back." The Violence 2 Deaths Linked To Tiny Airport

There have been at least two unexplained deaths connected to the airport here.

A few years ago Mr. Kashani's wife, Leila Kashani, fell or was pushed to her death from a hotel room in Madrid.

She was frequently listed as a partner in the companies that shipped weapons technology to Iran. In 1984 she and her husband were arrested in Los Angeles for stealing $5 million belonging to a partner in a Swiss engineering company called Tex Consulting and Engineering Inc. The partner was Mr. Habibollahi.

The death of Mr. Barschel, the former Premier of Schleswig-Holstein, on Oct. 11, 1987, in Switzerland shook Germany. Mr. Barschel was found drugged and drowned in a bathtub in the exclusive Beau Rivage Hotel in Geneva. The police have not ruled out suicide, but the case is still under investigation in Switzerland and Germany. Mr. Barschel's widow and brother insist that he was assassinated.

Investigators say there was apparently a meeting in Geneva of Iranian arms dealers and senior Iranian officials that may have included Ahmed Khomeini, the son of Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and Mehdi Karoubi, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Rafiq Dust, an arms dealer, hours before Mr. Barschel's body was found.

"The report is that the US has sold 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium that had been found in Iraq to Cameco, a Canadian company." Yomin Postelnil, Canada Free Press

President Bush was Right, As Evidenced by This Month’s Sale of Saddam’s Uranium and More  By Yomin Postelnik  Saturday, July 12, 2008 

Excerpted from: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3927

If anyone doubts the need to have ousted Saddam, a news release in the past few days should put such doubts to rest.  The report is that the US has sold 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium that had been found in Iraq to Cameco, a Canadian company.  The uranium will now be used as fuel and poses no severe risk if properly stored and sealed. 

A recycling company found uranium oxide -- a radioactive material also known as yellowcake -- in a shipment of scrap steel it believes originally came from Iraq), the company said Thursday.

Paul de Bruin, spokesman for Rotterdam-based Jewometaal, said that the shipment was passed on last month from a Jordan metal dealer who was unaware it contained any forbidden materials.

"I've dealt with this man for 15 years and he says he's sure it came from Iraq," De Bruin said. He said Jewometaal had been asked not to reveal the name of the Jordanian exporter while the find was being investigated.

Nuclear experts say that although not highly radioactive, uranium oxide can be processed into enriched uranium usable in a nuclear weapon -- but highly advanced technology is needed.

Excerpted from: http://www.command-post.org/gwot/2_archives/009597.html

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Excerpted from http://www.mahablog.com/oldsite/id13.html

Shortly after U.S. Marines occupied Tuwaitha, stories about an amazing discovery of nuclear material popped up in American news media...

 

 

So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have discovered 14 buildings that betray high levels of radiation. Some of the readings show nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.

A few hundred meters outside the complex, where peasants say the "missile water" is stored in mammoth caverns, the Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts."

"It's amazing," said Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."

To n