Iranian Alert -- July 18, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

9/11 Panel Report Says Iran Aided Al Qaeda

July 18, 2004
Agence France-Presse
The Washington Times

The September 11 commission's report, due out Thursday, says Iran may have facilitated the 2001 attacks on the United States by providing eight to 10 al Qaeda hijackers with safe passage to and from training camps in Afghanistan, press reports said yesterday.

Weekly magazines Time and Newsweek, in similar reports quoting congressional, commission and government sources, said Iran relaxed border controls and provided "clean" passports for the so-called "muscle hijackers" to transit Iran to and from Osama bin Laden's camps between October 2000 and February 2001.

According to Time, the commission's report says Iran at one point proposed collaborating with al Qaeda on attacks against the United States, but bin Laden declined, saying he did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia.

Newsweek said the Iranian finding in the commission's report is based largely on a December 2001 memo discovered buried in the files of the National Security Agency.

The memo, according to Newsweek, says "Iranian border inspectors were instructed not to place stamps in the passports of al Qaeda fighters from Saudi Arabia who were traveling from bin Laden's camps through Iran."

Time said commission investigators "found that Iran had a history of allowing al Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border," a practice they said dates back to October 2000.

Iranian officials, Time said, issued "specific instructions to their border guards ... not to put stamps in the passports of al Qaeda personnel and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier."

"The new discovery about Iran's assistance to al Qaeda," Newsweek said, "is among the most surprising new findings" in the 500-page report compiled by the non-partisan commission.

Former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard A. Clarke, who in a recent book said President Bush's administration was obsessed with involving Iraq in the attacks and had ignored intelligence on Iran, told Newsweek the commission's report confirms that.

The day after the attacks, Mr. Clarke said in his book, Mr. Bush told him: "See if Saddam (Hussein) did this. See if he's linked in any way."

Although there was no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks, Newsweek quoted Mr. Clarke as saying "there were lots of reasons to believe (al Qaeda) was being facilitated by elements of the Iranian security services. We told the president that specifically. The best evidence we had of state support (for al Qaeda) was Iran."

Time said the Iranian offer to collaborate with al Qaeda to attack the United States was made after the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors as the ship was being refueled in Yemen.

"But the offer," said the weekly, "was turned down by bin Laden because he did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia."

Time said much of the new information about Iran "came from al Qaeda detainees interrogated by the U.S. government, including captured Yemeni al Qaeda operative Waleed Mohammed bin Attash, who organized the ... attack on the USS Cole."

The New York Times, meanwhile, reported yesterday the commission's report would recommend creation of a cabinet-level post that would take power from the CIA, FBI, National Security Council and Pentagon to oversee intelligence gathering said to have been lacking before and after the September 11 attacks.

The newspaper said the intelligence czar proposal would likely meet fierce opposition from the Pentagon and the CIA, "which would have to cede significant authority over the government's estimated $40 billion intelligence budget and other policy matters."

Under the proposal, the CIA director, who now reports directly to the White House, would have to go through the new national intelligence director, the Times quoted one official as saying.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040718-120903-6267r.htm

HUMAN RIGHTS: Judge Abruptly Ends Zahar Kazemi’s Death in Custody Trial

Radio Farda Newsroom

July 18, 2004 – “I'm so angry I cannot speak. They didn’t even pay attention to our evidence and announced the end of the trial,” Novel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said on Sunday to reporters, as she walked out from the courtroom where the trial of intelligence agent Mohammd-Reza Aqdam for killing her clients’ kin Zahra Kazemi.
Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, 54, died last July in the Evin prison of broken skull and hemorrhage, which, a presidential investigative panel said, was a result of the blows she had received during interrogation.

“This is not a fair trial. The case hasn't been reviewed. If they issue a verdict it will be unfair,” Ms. Ebadi said outside the Tehran criminal court on the second day of the trial, during which Ms. Ebadi and her colleagues tried to present evidence and quoted reports showing that other officials, notably from the Islamic government’s judiciary, may have been involved in Zahra Kazemi’s death.

Victim family’s lawyers also protested against the trial’s venue, and said the case must be tried as a murder at a higher, province-level penal court.

Foreign diplomats, including Canadian and Dutch envoys to Tehran, and foreign journalists, who attended the trial on Saturday, were barred from entering the courtroom on Sunday.

The defendant, whose trial resumed on Saturday after a nine-months break, and is charged with “semi-involuntary manslaughter,” maintained that he was innocent. He faces a maximum of three years in prison. His lawyer told the court that witnesses had seen the victim being hit on the head by a senior judicial official, identified as Mohammad Bakhshi.

The trial pits the judiciary against the intelligence ministry, Khatami’s reformist government against the conservatives in the intelligence and security forces and the judiciary, and pits the lawyers of the victim against the lawyers of the accused, and pits both sets of lawyers against the judge, who ended the trial abruptly, announced that verdict will be announced sometime next seek.

The Islamic government officials last week rejected Canada’s request to send three observers to the trial. They said Kazemi had entered Iran as an Iranian and her death in custody was an internal issue. But Kazemi’s death, the subsequent investigations and the trial a year after, places Canada and the Islamic government on two sides of a diplomatic row which may impact the two country’s trade and diplomatic relations.

Canada recalled its Tehran envoy last week, after the judiciary said Canadian diplomats could not attend the trial, but suspended the recall on Saturday, after Canadian ambassador Philip MacKinnon attended the trial.

http://www.radiofarda.com/en_article/2004/7/50d6fb38-96fa-4610-a9cc-199de17f081d.html

Canada Recalls Tehran Envoy, Again

July 18, 2004 - Canada’s ambassador to Tehran Philip Mackinnon would return home, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said on Sunday, calling the abruptly ended trial in Tehran of an intelligence ministry official for killing Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi “flagrant denial of justice.”
Ambassador Philip MacKinnon, his Dutch counterpart representing the European Union and senior diplomats from Britain and France - alongside foreign journalists - arrived at the courtroom on Sunday to find their access blocked. A spokeswoman for the UK Foreign Office confirmed that a British observer had attended the trial on Saturday but was denied entry on Sunday. She made no further comment.

The judge said foreign diplomats and journalists were being barred to show the international community that Iran would not bow under pressure, the judge said on Sunday, according to Iranian reporters who were allowed inside the courtroom.

Kazemi’s death in custody trial has strained Iran-Canada relations. Graham said last week that Canada was considering its options, including economic and trade sanctions against Iran and taking Iran to the International Court of Justice.

http://www.radiofarda.com/en_article/2004/7/170752de-fe33-438b-8eaf-94371a85839f.html

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