Posted on 12/06/2005 11:15:58 AM PST by parnasokan
NIGERGATE: CORRUPTION, EVASION AND THE ORIGINS OF THE DOCUMENTS
Free Republic anticipated this back in 2004 and now it’s happening. The joint FBI- SISMI investigation is moving at a fast pace, according to well informed sources evidence has been gathered that proves where the Niger documents actually originated. It was revealed that all of the evidence points towards France. In addition investigations are being carried out into the activities of those who helped Rocco Martino evade police surveillance in Italy and leave the country. Further details reveal that journalists from the ‘anti-3B’ network attempted to corrupt an Italian government official in order to access ‘top secret’ information regarding intelligence activities. The mysteries, theories and suspicions surrounding Niger-gate are coming to an end. What will emerge, all of it backed up by incontestable evidence, is going to be revealing to say the least.
The following article by Chiocci and Sechi was published in today’s edition of the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.
--- ARTICLE BEGINS --- Nigergate, Corrupt government official under investigation
Secret information belonging to the Italian Government was sold for profit
By Gian Marco Chiocci and Mario Sechi
Rome, 6 December 2005
The United States and Italy will carry out a joint investigation into the Niger-gate affair, the decision was announced by the Director of SISMI, Nicolò Pollari, on 3 November (not, as reported by La Repubblica, the 24 November) during a hearing of the Copaco Commission. The investigations will focus on discovering the truth behind the documents that emerged from the Niger embassy in Rome, the role played by Rocco Martino (the spy paid by the French) and the conduct of a number of Italian and American citizens whose activities are only now beginning to emerge.
According to indiscretions circulating in various, including judicial, environments the individuals under investigation attempted to obtain information on people and the activities of the Italian Intelligence Services. The activities conducted by SISMI are classified and covered by state secrecy laws. The investigation is examining the attempt to acquire information classified as ‘top secret’ through having corrupted a government official with access to archives and databases belonging to the State. Counterespionage activities have already begun and the FBI will now take part in them. The Bureau has been criticised for not having interrogated Rocco Martino while he was in the United States. The freelance spy arrived in the USA in somewhat unusual circumstances with the help and assistance of a group of individuals who – to all intents, effects and purposes – planned his ‘disappearance’ from Italy while he was under observation and the investigators were preparing to interrogate him.
Yesterday Palazzo Chigi (seat of the Italian Government) replied to the latest version, reviewed and once again corrected, of the Niger-gate affair published by La Repubblica. In its press release the Government stated once again that Italy and SISMI are totally extraneous to the affair of the false documents regarding the sale of uranium by Niger to Iraq. The accusations of an ‘Italian connection’ were closed definitively – notwithstanding the attempts of the ‘Anti-3B’ (Bush, Blair, Berlusconi) network – some time ago by a letter signed by the Director of the FBI stating that the case had been archived. SISMI and the FBI had been collaborating since 2003. On the contrary to that stated by La Repubblica the exchange of information and the joint line of inquiry between the two institutions is legitimate because the FBI is both a police and intelligence service, the bureau conducts counterespionage activities and it is in this role that it is collaborating with SISMI in the Niger-gate affair. It is in this context that information was exchanged and it is according to this context that the Under Secretary Gianni Letta and the Director of SISMI Nicolò Pollari informed parliament that investigations would continue.
Trying to demonstrate at all costs that an unsustainable theory is true can avert attention from the facts. This is what’s happening at La Repubblica where they seem to have forgotten that Italy, on the contrary to other countries and intelligence services, has never subtracted itself from collaboration with the United States. La Repubblica also seems to forget that Rocco Martino did not have a ‘casual’ or ‘occasional’ relationship with the spies from the DGSE but a constant one, one which did not simply concentrate on information regarding the Balkans but included delicate issues concerning parliamentary bodies and the governments of various European countries. According to intelligence inquiries Martino was not simply a ‘postman’ but a 007 capable of maintaining high level relations and in possession of extremely delicate information. His relations ship with the French spies was of a regular nature, consolidated and tested up to the point that Martino – when the relationship went sour – went as far as to ask for compensation. As regards the role of Alain Chouet, the number two at the DGSE (who fell from grace and was removed from his position due to having deviated the French services by conducting illegal investigations into the affairs of President Chirac), it would be interesting to know something about his contacts with Martino in Brussels in 1999-2000, a crucial – and still partially unknown – moment in the Niger-gate affair.
The ‘prints’ of the diplomats are all over Niger-gate, this is evident. The dossier was not produced in Rome, it was catapulted into the ‘eternal city’ from another country, one which the joint SISMI-FBI will be examining in order to expose the facts once and for all.
--- ARTICLE ENDS ---
Gee, I wonder.... did kerry make any trips to France around the time that the "FORGED DOCUMENTS" went from France to Italy? Hmmmm
I'll go with the story first propounded to Seymour Hersh and stated in his October 27, 2003 New Yorker article, that it was ex-CIA who forged the documents to embarrass the Administration.
PING
The forged documents were either done by a rank amateur with no regard for their accuracy, or someone trying to create obvious forgeries, and who knew what they were doing. The documents are that bad.
The notion that they were forged to advance the argument for war with Iraq is BS, and some of the people propounding it should know better.
"all of the evidence points towards France"
I knew it!
"Bush lied" bump
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