Sudden reappearance of Zambia’s former spy chief raises suspicions

January 30, 2009 by 1 Comment

Xavier Chungu

Xavier Chungu

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Zambian Police have announced the capture of Xavier Chungu, the country’s former spy chief, who had fled abroad in 2004, escaping trial for embezzlement charges. For nearly a decade, Chungu was the powerful Director of the Zambia Security Intelligence Service (ZSIS). In 2001, following the regime change in Lusaka after the election to the Presidency of the late Levy Mwanawasa, Chungu was dismissed from his post. He was then prosecuted for embezzling state funds and imprisoned for several months. In 2004, however, Chungu jumped bail and escaped to an unknown country (purportedly Canada) using a false passport. A warrant for his arrest was issued by the Zambian Police as well as by Interpol. Earlier last week, Xavier Chungu voluntarily surrendered himself to Zambian Police officers at Lusaka International Airport, after arriving there on a British Airways flight from South Africa. Read more of this post

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French intelligence operatives’ trial resumes in Belgrade

January 30, 2009 by 3 Comments

Petrušić

Petrušić

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The trial of a three-member group of French intelligence operatives arrested in Yugoslavia in 1999, on charges of planning to assassinate Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, has resumed for a fourth time in the Serb capital Belgrade. The sensational charges against the three are not unique. Although the intelligence history of NATO’s 1999-2000 war in Yugoslavia has yet to be written, the limited information currently available points to significant intelligence and espionage activity by several European nations in the former Yugoslavia. Most notably, in August 2000, the Yugoslav army captured a covert group of two British (Adrian Pragnell and John Yore) and two Canadian (Shaun Going and Liam Hall) operatives who were captured on Yugoslav soil reportedly without visas and in possession of materials for making sophisticated explosives. All four were eventually released by the post-Slobodan Milosevic Yugoslav government. In another case, a team of four Dutch undercover commandos was intercepted while attempting to cross into Serbia from Montenegro.  Read more of this post

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Analysis: Iranian Terrorist Group Enjoys US, EU Protection

January 29, 2009 by 2 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), also known as the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, is one of several armed groups deemed terrorist by Washington and the European Union (EU). On January 26, however, the EU decided to remove MEK from its official list of terrorist organizations, a move that some observers believe was secretly supported by the US. This is because, despite MEK’s terrorist designation, Washington has routinely collaborated with it since 2003, prompted by the group’s fierce opposition to the regime in Tehran. In 2003, when the US invaded Iraq, American forces entered Camp Ashraf, MEK’s main military base in Iraq, to find “armored personnel carriers, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and vehicles […] along with more than 2,000 well-maintained tanks”. However, even though the group if officially classified by the US as terrorist, US troops were ordered by the Pentagon to give military protection to MEK armed groups in Iraq. Since then, Western correspondents in Iraq have frequently reported that US military personnel “regularly escort MEK supply runs between Baghdad and […] Camp Ashraf”. Read article →

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MI6 agents accused of assisting corrupt Kazakh oil propaganda effort

January 28, 2009 by Leave a comment

Rakhat Aliyev

Rakhat Aliyev

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Until recently, Rakhat Aliyev was deeply embedded in Kazakhstan’s corrupt governing establishment. Having served for years as the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister and Director of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (the intelligence service, also known as KNB) he is uniquely aware of the annals of sleaze and fraud that dominate Kazakh political culture. In 2007, following his divorce with Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Aliyev became estranged from the Kazakh leadership. He was stripped of his government positions, issued with an arrest warrant, and now lives in exile in Vienna, Austria. Soon after his estrangement from the Kazakh leadership, Aliyev began accusing President Nazarbayev of regularly receiving secret commissions from foreign oil companies operating in Kazakhstan, and of illegally expropriating state assets worth billions of US dollars. Read more of this post

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Gates confirms CIA deal with Pakistan on missile strikes

January 28, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
On November 16, 2008, intelNews cited a report in The Washington Post, which revealed that the CIA unmanned drone airstrikes and military incursions in Pakistan are part of a secret US-Pakistani high-level deal. According to the agreement, “the US government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan’s government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes”. Last Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to break Washington’s part of the deal, by publicly admitting that Islamabad was indeed aware of the missile strikes. Mr. Gates was asked by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) during an open-door hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, whether the CIA decisions to fire missile missiles on Pakistani territory were “conveyed to the Pakistani government”. The Defense Secretary replied “[y]es, sir”. It is unclear whether he intended to acknowledge Islamabad’s cooperation. The Pakistani government responded on Wednesday through Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq, who denied the existence of a deal on the CIA missile strikes. The US Pentagon has so far refused to comment on Secretary Gates’ admission.

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Unprecedented German tax scandal has intelligence connection

January 27, 2009 by Leave a comment

Heinrich Kieber

Heinrich Kieber

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Klaus Zumwinkel was until recently the CEO of Deutsche Post, Germany’s now-privatized postal company, which is said to be the world’s largest logistics corporation. Early yesterday morning, Zumwinkel was given a two-year suspended sentence and fined €1 million for systematically evading taxes “with criminal energy”, as the presiding judge put it. The disgraced former CEO is thus far the highest-profile offender in what has become the largest financial crime scandal in German history. The affair involves nearly 1,000 names of wealthy investors, celebrities, and business executives, linked to illegal fund deposits at LLB and LGT Group, two “no-questions-asked” banks owned by the Royal family of the tiny alpine tax haven of Liechtenstein. What is perhaps less known is that the investigation, which now incorporates thousands of individuals in at least a dozen countries, began through a tip received by Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Read more of this post

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DNI nominee advocates major overhaul of US intelligence classification rules

January 27, 2009 by Leave a comment

Dennis Blair

Dennis Blair

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Confirmation hearings for retired US Navy Admiral Dennis Cutler Blair, who is expected to succeed Mike McConnel as Director of National Intelligence (DNI), have already begun on the Hill. Last week, Admiral Blair was questioned by several Senators about the classification system for intelligence records, which is frequently the subject of criticism by open government advocates. In responding, Mr. Blair conceded that “[t]here is a great deal of over-classification, some of [which] is done for the wrong reasons, to try to hide things from the light of day”. His remark prompted Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to relay his personal experience, which “is that over and over and over again, we have seen official secrecy used not for national security purposes, but to mislead the public”. Read more of this post

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Presidential Guard member convicted of espionage in West Bank

January 26, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank has announced a death sentence against a former member of the Presidential Guard who is said to have spied for Israel. Palestinian Authority prosecutors accused the unnamed 28-year-old man, resident of Hebron, of supplying sensitive information to Israeli intelligence agents since being recruited as an informant in 1997. The prosecution said that the information supplied to Israeli agents by the former Presidential Guard member resulted in –among other things– the capture by Israel’s Security Agency (Shin Bet) of Rateb Abayet and Adnan Abayat, both commanders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the secular armed wing of Fatah. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Why Did Bush Not Pardon Israeli Spy?

January 26, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In his latest article for The Santa Barbara News Press, Robert Eringer, the former FBI counterintelligence agent who now works for Prince Albert II of Monaco, reminds intelligence observers of the case of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard. Pollard, who has so far served 24 years of a life sentence, was found guilty in 1987 of spying on the US on behalf of Israel, while working as a US Navy intelligence analyst. Since his arrest and conviction, Pollard has been considered something of a national hero in Israel, and an enormous effort has been launched to secure his release. Israeli newspapers, whose articles routinely liken Pollard to Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, who was captured by Hamas in 2006,  disclosed earlier this month that a “massive campaign was conducted behind the scenes in Washington to persuade US president George W. Bush to commute Pollard’s sentence”. The effort, which included “tens of thousands of phone calls” that “flooded the White House”, was so enormous that several Israeli insiders considered Pollard’s release almost certain. Pollard remained imprisoned after all, and the question is, why did George W. Bush not succumb to these lobbying pressures? Read article →

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Former UN prosecutor says CIA prevented Serb war criminals’ arrest

January 25, 2009 by 2 Comments

Carla Del Ponte

Carla Del Ponte

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Observers of the most recent Balkan Wars in the former Yugoslavia will remember Carla Del Ponte, who was the United Nations’ Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Ms. Del Ponte, who is now Switzerland’s Ambassador to Argentina, has always regretted the UN’s failure to arrest during her ICTY tenure wanted Serb war criminals Radovan Karadzic (who was eventually captured in 2008 ) and General Ratko Mladic. She relays these regrets in her new book, Madame Prosecutor, which was published on January 20 by Other Press. Interestingly, the book has been essentially ignored by the mainstream Western media. A single review was published on January 22 in The Economist. Amazingly, the British journal, which is known for its attention to detail, omitted one stunning revelation in Ms. Del Ponte’s book. Namely that, during her ICTY tenure, the UN’s hunt for Karadzic and Mladic was actually obstructed by the CIA and by its then Director George Tenet. Read more of this post

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Analysis: EU President’s alleged ties to Russian mafia

January 25, 2009 by 4 Comments

Vaclav Klaus

Vaclav Klaus

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
On December 22, 2008, intelNews reported former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer’s allegations that the current European Union (EU) president was a Soviet collaborator during the Cold War and “may still be under the influence of Russian Intelligence”. The accused is no other than Vaclav Klaus, the former Prime Minster and current President of the Czech Republic, who in 1991 co-founded the country’s conservative Civic Democratic Party. A few days ago, Business New Europe published an extensive summary of Mr. Klaus’ “historical track record of unambiguous support for Russia [which makes some] wonder exactly whose interests he best serves”. The article references a 2003 exposé published in the Czech weekly magazine Respect in further detailing Mr. Klaus’ alleged ties to Russian organized criminal activity in the Czech Republic, which “go back to the early 1990s”. Read more of this post

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Former KGB officer to publish “new data” on nuclear espionage

January 24, 2009 by 1 Comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Alexander Vassiliev, who worked in the American Division of the KGB from 1987 to 1990, is well known to intelligence historians. His first book, Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America (1999) included information the author claims to have copied from internal KGB records. Among several critics of the book was Rutgers University professor John Lowenthal, who dismissed it as containing a “plethora of errors, and […] strategic omissions [that] leave it demonstrably untrustworthy [and] far below minimal standards of scholarly or journalistic rigor for any serious consideration”. Now Vassiliev is preparing his return with a second book, entitled Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, which he co-wrote with John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. The book, which is scheduled for publication by Yale University Press in March, is also based on internal KGB “files, copied by Mr. Vassiliev into notebooks” before he resigned from his post at the KGB. Read more of this post

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Comment: Obama Should Address CIA Assassinations

January 24, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Just hours after issuing executive orders for the abolition of the use of torture against terrorism detainees and the closure of the Guantánamo detention facility, US President Barack Obama was already being praised as acting “in a manner consistent with our nation’s values, consistent with our Constitution and consistent with the rule of law”. One jubilant pundit publicly opined that the US has now “reclaimed its place among nations that respect the rule of law and human dignity”. Not so fast. Blinded by the glare of triumphant statements about reclaiming America’s lost moral ground, observers overlooked two US missile strikes that hit Pakistan on Friday afternoon, killing at least 20 people, according to international news agencies. Keep Reading–>

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World’s most prolific nuclear arms smuggler admits CIA link

January 23, 2009 by 8 Comments

Urs Tinner

Urs Tinner

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On October 4, 2003, Italian authorities, acting on a tip by the CIA, inspected a Libya-bound German ship anchored at Taranto, Italy. The ship was found to be carrying several centrifuges for use in Libya’s uranium enrichment program. The discovery led to the uncovering of the role of Dr. Abdul Qadeer (A.Q.) Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, in subcontracting his nuclear knowhow to North Korea, Iran and Libya. It also led to the uncovering of Urs Tinner, a Swiss engineer who worked under A.Q. Khan, and was said at the time to be leading “the world’s biggest nuclear smuggling ring”. Tinner was eventually arrested along with his father Friedrich and brother Marco, both members of Tinner’s ring, and extradited to Switzerland. Strangely, however, he was never charged and was in fact released from detention last December, with the blessings of the CIA, who did not wish to see him prosecuted. Now Swiss TV station SF1 has announced the scheduled airing of a documentary, in which the freed Tinner will acknowledge that he tipped the CIA about the German ship in Taranto and A.Q. Khan’s nuclear subcontracting. Read more of this post

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NSA whistleblower reveals routine spying on American media

January 23, 2009 by 1 Comment

Russell Tice

Russell Tice

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Russell Tice, an analyst with the National Security Agency (NSA) until 2005, was among several inside sources who in 2005 helped The New York Times reveal NSA’s warrantless spying program. A few months earlier, Tice had been fired by the NSA after he started to investigate a suspicious communications-monitoring program he was involved in. The last time Mr. Tice spoke publicly about his experience at the NSA was in 2006. He then waited until the Bush Administration was out of the White House before he made any more revelations. Hours after Barack Obama’s inauguration, Tice surfaced again, this time giving an interview to MSNBC’s Keith Olberman. Read more of this post

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