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http://www.infowars.com/print/iraq/berg_shady_iraqi.htm

The next to last paragraph should probably be added to your timeline with an *.

BERG MET WITH SHADY IRAQI

Philadelphia Daily News
By WILLIAM BUNCH
bunchw@phillynews.com
May 17, 2004

There's another strange new twist to the saga of Nick Berg and his final days of Iraq before his savage videotaped beheading.

Berg teamed up in Baghdad with an ex-Philadelphia man who led a controversial group of Iraqi expatriates encouraged by the U.S. government - even as he faced deportation for his role in Russian-emigre crime ring selling millions of vials used for crack.

Aziz Kadoory Aziz, also known as Aziz al-Taee, hooked up earlier this year with the 26-year-old West Chester man to start a small company called Shirikat Abraj Babil, or Babylon Towers Co., that would install, inspect and repair telecommunications and utility towers.

In interviews with several news organizations in Baghdad, Aziz claimed he may have been the last friend to speak with Berg before his kidnapping and beheading by terrorists possibly linked to the al Qaeda network. The radio-tower contractor had come back to Baghdad after a 13-day detainment in Mosul, only to disappear again on April 10.

Aziz said that on April 10 Berg "surprised me by calling me at 9 or 10, to say that he found some friend to travel with to Jordan." Berg said he was en route, but Aziz doesn't know who he was with or what kind of vehicle they were driving. "He said they were nice people. I told him to have a nice trip."

After living in Philadelphia for two decades, Aziz arrived in Baghdad sometime last year. A friend said he left for Iraq before the government moved on the deportation case.

Here in America, Aziz was the highly visible spokesman for a group he'd founded called the Iraqi American Council and appeared frequently on major media outlets like Fox News Channel calling for the military ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Aziz' outfront role also included speaking at pre-war, pro-troop rallies. It continued even after it was reported the inner-city electronic entrepreneur had pleaded guilty in the crack-vial case in 1994 and later had legal run-ins involving stolen computers and bootlegged CDs.

His partnership with Berg deepens the web of intrigue surrounding Berg's time in Iraq, his detainment by U.S.-backed authorities, his disapperance and his videotaped beheading by masked thugs claiming revenge for the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture.

Before traveling to Iraq twice this year, Berg had been investigated by the FBI because in 1999 - while at the University of Oklahoma - an associate of jailed Sept. 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui had obtained Berg's e-mail password.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said Berg was cleared in that probe, but the apparent coincidence may have prolonged the Mosul detainment of Berg, who was interviewed three times by FBI agents before he was released on April 6.

Officials have told the Daily News that Berg also aroused suspicion because he was an unescorted American carrying a copy of the Koran and what they called "anti-Semitic" literature. Berg, who is Jewish, also told friends that his passport contained an Israel visitor's stamp.

Now, add the name of Aziz K. Aziz to Berg's strange Iraqi odyssey. Efforts to contact Aziz in Baghdad by phone and e-mail over the weekend were unsuccessful.

Aziz told the Associated Press that Berg had contacted him by e-mail sometime after attending a two-day conference in Virginia on business opportunities in Iraq last December. Aziz agreed to give him some space in an office he had in Baghdad to form a partnership seeking communications work.

Berg refers to Aziz in an e-mail to friends on Jan. 18. "I've found a fairly competent and reliable office manager," he wrote. "He's actually been living in Philadelphia the last 20 years and just came back - so he's similarly out of his element."

Berg's first efforts to win radio-tower repair work were unsuccessful, and he was robbed on the streets of Baghdad.

"I was always pressuring him to keep a low profile, but he ignored all my caution and advice," Aziz said. "Berg kept a high profile, wandering around late at night or took public transport. Sometimes he got upset, looked at me in such a way, or said, 'You're not my dad' or 'I'm an adult, I can make my own decision." "

Aziz said that Berg left his equipment with him during a short trip back to the U.S. When he came back, the two spent an hour climbing tall buildings at Abu Ghraib, site of the infamous prison. Aziz said they re-recorded measurements that were in his stolen notebook.

The next day, Aziz said, Berg called to say that he was going to the northern city of Mosul, where the brother of Berg's uncle lives. "He invited me to go with him, but I declined because it was dangerous," said Aziz.

It's not known whether Aziz ever told Berg of his controversial past.

In 1993, about a decade after fleeing Saddam's Iraq for America, Aziz was in the electronics business when he was one of 25 people charged with distributing some 100 million crack vials on the East Coat. Prosecutors said that Aziz, who lived in Northeast Philadelphia, was tied to a network run by a Soviet immigrant named Valery Sigal. Most in the ring were immigrants from Russia or the former Eastern Bloc.

Aziz claimed he didn't know the vials were going to drug dealers. but he pled guilty. He was sentenced to three years of probation, fined $3,000, and forced to forfeit $17,673 in profits.

He was arrested again in May 2001, on charges that the chain of electronics stores he owns in Philadelphia was selling counterfeited compact discs. A judge dismissed that case for lack of evidence last March. The Inquirer also reported he received probation in a 1997 case for selling stolen computers to undercover cops. Current records show he owns a cell-phone firm called Page One Communications with a number of outlets in Philadelphia.

Aziz went by several names in Philadelphia. Sometimes called "Joe Aziz," he started calling himself Aziz al-Taee in the late 1990s, around the time he formed the Iraqi American Council. He said al-Taee was his tribal name and - in speaking out against Saddam - he was worried about relatives in Baghdad.

The group has an address in Washington's Virginia suburbs and a national board of directors, but there were differing claims of how many members or how much clout the group really had.

In December 2002, another key member of the Iraqi American Council - a California engineer named Bassam Ridha Al-Hulsaini - was reportedly one of 15 Iraqis flown to Washington by the State Department for two days of "media training" under a project known as Future of Iraq. A couple of months later, al-Hulsaini addressed a "pro-troops" rally in San Francisco, declaring that "The Iraq people are waiting for this liberation."

It's not clear whether Aziz received "media training," but the handsome, nattily dressed ex-pat, now 40, probably didn't need it. He addressed similar rallies in Valley Forge, St. Louis and Washington, where he claimed Hussein's henchmen killed both his cousin and brother-in-law. The rallies were launched by Clear Channel syndicated talk-radio host Glenn Beck, and the media giant sponsored many of them.

A friend and fellow council member - Ahmad Kuba of Florida - said yesterday that Aziz left for Baghdad last summer, before any deportation proceedings began.

"There are no cell phones in Iraq," Aziz told a reporter in May 2003. "That's the way to the future."

Now, Aziz is now getting publicity for monitoring the final cell-phone calls of his slain partner. He said this weekend he understands Berg's phone was used as recently as April 19, and that three calls were made that day to Jordan, to the United Arab Emirates and to a local number.

"He could still have been alive."

In case it's needed for future reference:

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

PR Newswire
May 19, 1993, Wednesday
State and Regional News

CRACK VIAL DISTRIBUTORS CHARGED IN DRUG CONSPIRACY
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA, May 19

Michael J. Rotko, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Ernest D. Preate Jr., Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, S.B. Billbrough, Special Agent in Charge, Philadelphia Office, Drug Enforcement Administration, C. Michael Daley, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Division, Philadelphia Office, Internal Revenue Service, David Warren, Special Agent in Charge, Philadelphia Office, U.S. Customs Service, and R.M. Hazelwood, III, Inspector in Charge, U.S. Postal Service, Philadelphia, announced today that a federal grand jury has returned two indictments charging twenty-five (25) individuals with conspiring to aid and abet the distribution of approximately 815,000 grams of "crack" cocaine through the sale of "crack" cocaine vials to "crack" dealers.

The two indictments charge that the twenty-five defendants established and maintained two competing criminal organizations, referred to as the Belkin Crack Vial Organization and the Sigal Crack Vial Organization, in order to manufacture and distribute crack vials for use by "crack" dealers in packaging and selling "crack" cocaine. Each organization created and manufactured its own brands of "crack" vials: the Belkin Crack Vial Organization manufactured the "Banana" vial, and the "Illusion" vial; the Sigal Crack Vial Organization created the "Black Rose" vial. The "Banana" vials were popular with "crack" vial dealers, the grand jury alleged, because they were designed to give the appearance of containing more "crack" than they actually held.

The two organizations are charged with manufacturing approximately 16,300,000 "crack" vials during the last three years. The indictment charges that the Belkin Organization's "crack" vial factory is located at Vortex Products Corporation, 100 Prospect Street, Metuchen, New Jersey; the Sigal Organization's "crack" vial factory is located at M & C Supply Company, 145 Railroad Drive, Warminster, Pennsylvania.

At one point, the grand jury charged, the Sigal Organization's vial business was so successful that it had trouble meeting orders. The indictment charges that one defendant said "the packaging broke down ... of course I want to have it done ... they're running 24-hour shifts ... you can't do no more ... the machine is running non-stop."

According to the indictment, the "crack" vials usually moved from the factories to storage facilities in and around Philadelphia, New York and northern New Jersey. The vials were distributed by members of the organizations to retail stores owned by members of the organization, as well as others, in Philadelphia, New York, Wilmington and elsewhere. The stores -- which often sold "crack" vials together with narcotic cutting agents and other drug paraphernalia -- then sold the vials directly to "crack" dealers, often in packs of 100 or more. The "crack" dealers used the vials to package chunks of "crack" cocaine to "crack" addicts and users.

"If you've ever seen crack vials on the street in Philadelphia, you may have been looking at vials made by one of these two organizations," said Attorney General Preate.

The following retail stores are identified in the indictments as being operated by members of the Belkin and Sigal organizations and as selling "crack" vials to "crack" users:

Sound of Music II Sound of Music

2634 Germantown Avenue 3613 Germantown Avenue

Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, PA
Music City Music City
2309-11 North Front Street 2722 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, PA

John's Discount Store Seven Plus Electronics
1402 West Girard Avenue 1408 West Girard Avenue
Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, PA

Sound of Chelten Hi-Tech Electronics
127 West Chelten Avenue 135-A South 52nd Street
Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, PA

Blue Star Sportswear Hi-Sound Stereo
135-B South 52nd Street 502 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA Wilmington, DE

4th Street Car Stereo 5th Street Car Stereo
404 Market Street 2957 North Fifth Street
Wilmington, DE Philadelphia, PA

Car Stereo City Yok's Electronics
2752 Germantown Avenue 2640 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, PA

Sound of Woodland Golden Sound
6337 Woodland Avenue 4093 Lancaster Avenue
Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, PA

New York Sound & Video
27 North 52nd Street
Philadelphia, PA

The grand jury charged that the Belkin Organization attempted to extend its distribution system outside of the Middle Atlantic area. One defendant was overheard describing a trip he had taken to Atlanta, Georgia. He stated: "We made deals with the three big dealers. The big dealers took the capsules. I gave everybody capsules, even the small dealers. But it was under the condition that they will continue to distribute them further."
In order to hide their profits, the indictments charge, certain of the defendants laundered cash receipts in order to hide the fact that the proceeds came from the sale of "crack" vials. One defendant alone is charged with 90 counts of money laundering.
This morning, teams of law enforcement agents began serving arrests warrants on twenty-five defendants in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. Agents also executed search warrants on thirty-five locations, including the factories where the "crack" vials were manufactured, residences of certain defendants, storage facilities and warehouses used by the defendants, retail stores from which "crack" vials were sold, and safe deposit boxes used by certain of the defendants.
One indictment charges the following individuals with criminal participation in the Belkin Crack Vial Organization:

Henry Belkin, a/k/a "Mike," Leonard Edelson, Sam Zhadanov, Alexander Srebrianski, a/k/a "Alex," Zachria Gispan, a/k/a "Zacki," Michael Haftka, a/k/a "Mischa," Gavriel Golan, a/k/a "Gabby," Roman Zabizhim, FNU Kim, a/k/a "Mr. Kim."

A separate indictment charges the following individuals with criminal participation in the Sigal Crack Vial Organization:

Valery Sigal, a/k/a "Joe," Gennady Sigal, a/k/a "Gene, Zoltan Racz, Zoltan Harta, Dany Hersohn, a/k/a "Danik," FNU Kim, a/k/a "Mr. Kim," Mi Ran Kim, Menachem Gola, a/k/a "Nachem," Jabar Pierre Bouayad, John Bonner, James Skyrm, Robert Platt, Yechiel Shifman, a/k/a "Yok," Majid Gholamzadeh, a/k/a "Magic," Edik Ilin, Aziz Kadoory Aziz, a/k/a "Joe."

The investigation was begun by the Bureau of Narcotics Investigation of the Attorney General's Office. Federal agencies joined when the investigation expanded beyond Pennsylvania. Rotko and Preate called the investigation and indictments "an example of the excellent results which can come from close cooperation between state and federal law enforcement agencies." Assistant United States Attorneys Paul L. Gray and Scott D. Godshall have been working closely with the agents during
the investigation and will be handling the prosecution.