NIGERGATE: INQUIRY TO INVESTIGATE CORRUPTION AND ASSISTING FUGITIVES

Busy days for SISMI and the FBI. The joint investigation is moving forward and it looks like there are going to be a series of surprise revelations. The counterespionage aspect of the investigation is going to take a very lose look at attempts by Italian and American citizens to obtain information regarding individuals and intelligence activities, information that is covered by secrecy laws. That’s not all, according to ‘certain rumours’ circulating in a number of environments, including judicial, the very same individuals attempted (and may have succeeded) to corrupt Italian government officials in order to access archives and databases belonging to the Italian Government. If this is this case then one of the charges is that of spying. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, nor should the incredible fervour with which certain individuals, well known American freelance journalists, assisted Rocco Martino to escape from Italy when the Italian authorities were searching for him in order to interrogate him. More on this to come.

Following the publication of yet another ridiculous article by the Roman newspaper, La Repubblica, in which amongst other things the CIA are yet again accused of lying to the American public, the Italian government published the following press release. As can be seen a number of issues are raised, first and foremost the fact (sorry disbelievers in FR, and there are quite a lot of you out there) that Italy has nothing whatsoever to do with the affair. Note how the “Roman newspaper” is often quoted and linked in a number of blog and web sites belonging to exponents of the Anti-3B (Bush, Blair, Berlusconi) network. Take a look, Free Republic has been pointing out these nefarious transatlantic media links for some time. With time the joint inquiry will most likely identify quite a few more. As always, stay tuned………..

ITALIAN GOVERNMENT PRESS RELEASE Monday December 5, 2005 URL: www.palazzochigi.it/GovernoInforma/Comunicati/testo_int.asp?d=26838

In relation to the continuing attempts by a Roman newspaper to accredit at all costs the theory of a presumed involvement on the part of the Italian government, an Italian institution or an Italian Intelligence Service in the creation or handling of the so-called “Iraq-Niger dossier”, the Government repeats once again its stance, one already communicated on numerous occasions, one already presented to the Parliamentary Control Committee on November 3 2005 and, more recently, explained by the minister of Defence during a public sitting of Parliament on November 10 2005.

- the Italian institutions are totally extraneous to any responsibility, direct or indirect, in the affair, be this through action or inaction;

- this conclusion has been reached through the common and convergent conclusions of experts in Italy, Great Britain and the United States, conclusions reached through the investigations of the State Procurators Office in Rome, the Butler Commission and lastly of the Senate Commission and of the investigations conducted by the FBI, conclusions which have been formally notified and remain intact and undoubted;

- on the other hand clarity is required in establishing the responsibilities of others. In regards to this SISMI is conducting its institutional duties, the assurance of the States security, in association with Italian and foreign authorities and structures. Duties conducted in order to establish the precise details of a complex affair in which attempts have been made to falsely accuse the Italian Republic.

The Italian Government is of the opinion that as both the FBI and SISMI are conducting ongoing investigations it would be inopportune to discuss the issue other than to specify that the FBI and SISMI are collaborating in their investigations.

Efuna Luis & Associates.
Solicitors & Advocates,
Lagos- Nigeria.
Email: luischambers@mymlmia.com

Compliment.

Attn: Next of Kin

I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise, please accept the content in good faith. I do not intend to cause any grief to you and your family. The reason for sending this mail is very fundamental to the doctrine of human privileges and right. My name is Barrister Efuna Luis, a legal practitioner and the personal Attorney to late Mr. Richard, who died along with his wife and Two sons in a ghastly motor accident along Sagamu express road Ibadan, over 3 years now (August 13, 2001). All the occupants in the vehicle lost their lives. I am convinced that it was the grace of God that made me to locate you.

My client was a successful and is an accomplished family man, who made enough fortune before his untimely death. Since then I had made several enquiries through your Embassy to locate any of my clients extended relative but this exercise has proved unsuccessful. After several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives through the Internet, to locate any member of his family, not much progress was recorded. My late client was an influential wealthy businessman, an oil magnete here in Nigeria and he left behind a deposit of Seven Million United States Dollars ($7,000,000.00USD) in his domiciliary bank account in a commercial bank here in Lagos.

After the death of my client his bankers contacted me, as his Attorney to provide his next of kin who should inherit his funds. The board of directors of his bank adopted a resolution and I was mandated to provide his next of kin for the payment of this money within 28 working days or forfeit the money to the bank as an abandoned property. The bankers had planned to invoke the abandoned property decree of 1996 to confiscate the funds after the expiration of the period given to me.

Fortunately, I came across your name, to my greatest astonishment, I discovered that you bear the same surname with my late client and coincidentally, you are nationals of the same country. Being convinced that you may be related with my late client or that you might provide clue to my search, I therefore, decided to contact with these facts before me, because of the similarities. By virtue of my closeness to the deceased and his immediate family, I am very much aware of my client financial standing and the bank account he operates.

I have reasoned very professionally and I feel it will be legally proper to present you as the next of kin of my deceased client, so that you can be paid the funds left in his bank account. I therefore seek your consent to present you as the Next of Kin to the Deceased since you are at an advantage, bearing the same surname and equally from the same country, that the proceeds of this Bank Account valued at $7 Million Dollars can be paid to you. We shall both share the funds. 55% for me and 40% to you, while 5% should be for Expenses or your Government may require Taxes.

I shall assemble all the necessary Legal Documents that will be used to back up our claim. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us seeing this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law. Please get in touch with me by email to enable us discuss further.

Awaiting your urgent response.

Best Regards.
Barrister Efuna Luis.
+234-82-307621
+234-802-829-5986(Mobile)

The leftist site you cite uses La Repubblica for a source. I trust Il Giornale more than La Repubblica. La Repubblica uses dubious CIA sources such as ex-agent Vince Cannistraro, who I believe is up to his neck in this CIA coup and is trying to cover his buns by naming Michael Ledeen and SISMI as the culprits (both of whom have issued a public denial of involvement). Then they tried to float the balloon that Libya was involved, which is bunk. SISMI has denied adamantly that they were involved. Given the facts, Cannistraro is a more likely culprit.I have been following the Il Giornale version and it comes very, very close to what Freepers have uncovered.

My theory (#42)is that this was a collaborative effort by the French and CIA coordinated by Wilson. Jacqueline, (Joe's his second wife), was a French diplomat and may have provided the connections for Wilson to see the forged documents that were supplied by the French through the Italians. In other words it is possible that Wilson knew that the docs were forged because he was privy to the information that French wanted to discredit the British info on Saddam shopping for yellowcake and that Wilson's objective was the same. The French just happen to manage the yellowcake production in Niger.

Therefore, Wilson did not lie when he said he saw the documents.

Per a thread by Fedora:

French intelligence soon began a campaign to discredit the US case for war against Iraq. In 1999, French intelligence had begun investigating the security of uranium supplies in Niger, where uranium production was controlled by a consortium led by the French mining company COGEMA, a division of the French state-owned nuclear energy firm AREVA. At that time, Italian businessman Rocco Martino provided French intelligence with genuine documents revealing that Iraq was planning to expand trade with Niger. French intelligence took an interest in the documents and asked Martino to provide more information. In 2000 he used a contact in the Niger embassy in Rome to provide French intelligence with documents purporting that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. These documents were later exposed as forgeries;

< snip >

Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war.

What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa

Also, Rocco only "procured" the documents, he did not forge them. Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy (in Rome) burglary...where the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. Ex-CIA agent (and coincidentally, an advisor to the Vatican in Rome),Vincent Cannistraro has stated that Alan Wolf and Duane Clarridge were the actual forgers, but his account is the only one available that I can find on the subject. He has also pointed the finger at Michael Ledeen, but Ledeen has publicly made a statement that he had nothing to do with it and demanded an apology from Cannistraro.

In addition, despite what the MSM is reporting, the Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:

Italy denies role in fake documents on Iraq

This was also backed up by Rocco here

Cannistraro's "theory" falls apart when you consider that he:

1) blamed SISME (the Italians), which has proven to be wrong

2) bases his assumptions on a Dec 2001 Ledeen meeting, when Cannistraro himself was in Rome in Nov 2001, which would make him just as suspect.

I also discovered that Cannistraro worked directly with Clarridge during Iran Contra, so he has alot of nerve bringing that up in connection to Ledeen. Another interesting tidbit (#47) that I discovered is that Wolf and Clarridge worked with Aldrich Ames, who outed Plame to the Russians in the 90's. Coincidence? I think not. Cannistraro trying to kill two birds with one stone to cover his own carcass seems to be the more likely answer. Equally suspicious is the Hersch article, where Cannistraro and another unnamed agent state the exact route the documents took and Cannistraro actually admits that he called the CIA about the documents before they were proven to be false. This begs the question...just how did Cannistraro know about the documents before they were vetted? Sounds a whole lot like Wilson's slip-up about seeing the documents.

Hersch also claims in the above linked article:

Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.

A more reliable source, Joe diGenova claims it was a possible CIA coup as well. As does James Lewis in two articles, here and here

Two other names just crept into this...Niger Ambassador Adamou Chekou, who was in charge at the Embassy when the break-in and forgeries occurred and Wissam al-Zahawiah, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See. Seems Italian Intelligence was eavesdropping on these two and discovered their "hotline".

Did you read that carefully. Holy See? As in Vatican? Where Vincent Cannistraro is the security advisor?

And speaking of al Zahawie, he was also apparently clairvoyant:

JANUARY 2003 : (AL ZAHAWIE, "RETIRED IN JORDAN" - IS RECALLED BACK TO BAGHDAD, IRAQ; HE IS TAKEN TO MEET UN WEAPONS INSPECTORS) But last January, al-Zahawie was summoned back to Baghdad for what he had expected would be a request to help Iraq's Foreign Service plan for deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz's planned visit to the Vatican. Instead, upon landing in Baghdad, al-Zahawie was taken to meet with UN weapons inspectors. Five inspectors interviewed him in a 90-minute session, he says.

"They asked why I went [to Niger], why I was chosen, when I left Rome and whether there were any other Iraqi diplomats at the Vatican," he says. "But then they asked who had the seal of the embassy and where I had left it." That's when al-Zahawie got wind of some kind of foul play. Italy had handed over cables from al-Zahawie to the Niger government announcing the trip, and other documents had pointed to his presence in Niger. But the inspectors were particularly interested in a July 6, 2000, document bearing al-Zahawie's signature, concerning a proposed uranium transaction. The inspectors refused to show him the letter, he says, but al-Zahawie was sure he had never written it. "If they had such a letter, it had to have been a forgery," he says. The tell-tale signs of the forgery were quite obvious, he stresses. [* My note: How would he know the 'tell-tale sign' if they refused to show the letters to him? Shades of Joe Wilson's foreknowledge of the docs?]

Also take into consideration:

Wilson (as Ambassador to Gabon) had/has connections to the Gabon Chief of State, Omar Bongo, who was the chief African ally of the French oil company TotalFinaElf, a major beneficiary of the Oil-for-Food bribes. Prior to the Iraq War, they had a contract with Saddam's regime worth an estimated 12.5 to 27.0 billion barrels of oil reserves. Also he had connections via the Middle East Institute and Rock Creek, both of which are Saudi controlled.

Wilson's wife Jacqueline was also apparently a lobbyist for Bongo and it seems Wilson was pretty chummy with Saddam's weapons buyer, having dinner with him on the eve that Kuwait was invaded in 1990. She is now an advisor to Bongo, her picture from a 2005 conference can be found here That makes it very clear that there are connections to oil-for-food. No wonder Wilson can afford his lifestyle.

Source: Posts 21 and 22

Nigergate: the dangerous relations between Democrat Senators and ex spies

NIGERGATE:Connections between the UN Oil-for-food Inquiry, the Rockefeller Group and the French

Tuesday 6 December 2005
Niger-gate/23. Information on the Sismi, a shadow of corruption
Gian Mark Chiocci and Mario Sechi, Il Giornale of 6 December 2005.

The United States and Italy inquire jointly on the authors of the Nigergate “hoax”, an action announced by the director of the Services NicolÃ² Pollari last November 3rd (and not 24 November as Repubblica wrote) in the presentation to Copaco. The investigation aims to reestablish the truth on the story of the false letters of the Niger embassy to Rome, on the role developed by Rocco Martino (the spy paid by the French) and by some Italian and American subjects whose alarming behavior is just emerging in recent hours.

According to leaked information that circulates in various environments, including judicial, these subjects have tried to obtain information on persons and activities of Italian intelligence. The actions of the Sismi are covered by secrecy and protected by law so to "pick the lock" to access information listed as "top secret" would have to have involved the corruption of a lax government civil employee who had access to classified files and data banks of the Italian government. For this counterespionage surveilling has been activated which the Fbi wants to share with the Sismi. The Bureau in fact must answer to the criticism arriving from the United States for the fact they did not interrogate Rocco Martino when he was in America. The freelance espionage reached the United States in an extraordinary way and with the complicity of a group of people that - in fact - took care of "the exfiltration" from Italian territory while it was under observation and the investigators are prepared to question him about it.

Yesterday the President's Office replied (again) to the latest version of Nigergate spread by Repubblica. The government reiterated that our Country and the Sismi were not involved in the false correspondence that told of an agreement for the sale of uranio from Niger to the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. The
Italian chapter - despite the efforts of the "anti Three B's" (Berlusconi-Blair-Bush) party has been closed for a long time with a letter of recording signed by the director of the Fbi. The collaboration between the Bureau and Italian intelligence has been Continuous since 2003. Unlike what affirms
Repubblica, the information interchange and of detective lines among the two institutions it is possible because the Fbi is at the same time a service of police and intelligence, it deals him with counterespionage and it is in such dress that on the Nigergate it converses with the Sismi and it shares the same objective of it.

Regardless of Repubblica's assertions , the investigative line and exchange of information between the two institutions is possible because the Fbi is an intelligence and police service at the same time. It takes care of counterespionage and is in such a fashion that on Nigergate it converses with the Sismi and of it shares the same objective. It is within this circle of events that the informative exchanges occurred and is in this context that the undersecretary Read Gianni and the director of the Sismi Pollari informed the Parliament that the investigation would be continued. To want to demonstrate at all costs a non-demonstrable theory often distracts sight from the facts. This is happening to Repubblica so it does not remember that Italy, with the exception of other Countries and services of intelligence, never has been embezzled in the collaboration with the United States and that Rocco Martino with the spies of the French Dgse did not have an irregular relationship at all, but constant and it did not regard alone information on the Balkans, but also other delicate issues that arrived until the level of parliamentary organs and governments of various European Countries. According to intelligence investigations, Martino was not at all an unprovided "mail carrier", but a 007 capable of relations of high level and in possession of extremely sensitive information. Its relationship with the false beards of the “Swimming pools” was regular, consolidated, tested until the point that Martino - when the relationship has been lost strength - has advanced to the French the demand for supplemental income. As far as the role of Alain Chouet, number two of the Dgse (fallen in misfortune and thrown out of the window for having the mission of the French Services lead to illegal surveillance on president Chirac) would be interesting to further study contacts with Martino to Brussels in the period 1999-2000, a crucial - and still partially dark period - for the story of Nigergate.

The imprints of small diplomatic hands are in Nigergate. This is evident. The dossier is not born in Rome, but it comes catapulted into the eternal City from another Country on which the Fbi-Sismi investigation will clarify once and for all.
http://www.mariosechi.net/2005/12/06/niger-gate23-informazioni-sul-sismi-ce-lombra-della-corruzione/

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