Replies

http://talismangate.blogspot.com/2008/06/pro-obama-iraqi-american-ex-convict.html
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Pro-Obama Iraqi-American Ex-Convict Supports Increased Attacks on U.S. Troops

There’s so much vileness here that I really don’t know what to mop up first.

Ayham Alsammarae, Iraq’s slimy ex-Minister of Electricity under the Bremer and Allawi administrations, who had escaped from an Iraqi prison by hiring an American security company to break him out back in December 2006, has resurfaced in the Jordanian capital Amman where he gave a press conference today saying, among other things, that he hoped that the insurgency in Iraq “would continue [against U.S. occupation] and avenges the Iraqi people.”

Alsammarae, an Iraqi-American Chicagoan, added during remarks carried by Radio Sawa (Arabic link) that he had contributed the maximum allowable of $2,300 to Barack Obama’s campaign. But there’s another Obama link to Alsammarae: while serving as electricity minister Alsammarae had been involved in brokering deals in the Iraqi electricity sector for Antoin Rezko, Obama’s long-term friend and patron. Rezko is the Syrian-American hustler who was convicted of fraud in an Illinois court on the day that Obama secured the Democratic nomination.

Alsammarae had been appointed minister under the Coalition Provisional Authority upon the recommendation of senior State Department officials who were involved in Iraqi affairs at the time. After leaving office upon Allawi’s election loss, Alsammarae reinvented himself as a mediator between insurgent groups and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq at the time Zalmay Khalilzad, who in turn arranged for Alsammarae, a onetime Republican Party fundraiser and activist in Arab-American circles, to meet with senior Bush administration officials. He was arrested by Iraqi police in Baghdad soon afterwards, an act that Alsammarae, a Sunni Arab, claimed was motivated by sectarian animosity.

Alsammarae escaped from prison after facing multiple corruption charges brought against him by Iraq’s Public Commission for Integrity; he was sprung from jail by hired U.S. mercenaries and left Iraq on a forged Chinese passport, he flew out to Amman on a private jet almost certainly with the knowledge and connivance of some U.S. intelligence officials. He returned to his multi-million dollar mansion in Chicago and, save for a few press interviews here and there, stayed under the radar. But Alsammarae seems to have been a beneficiary of the Amnesty Law that was recently passed by the Iraqi parliament, which was a benchmark for progress actively pushed for by Senate Democrats in Washington DC, and he’s eagerly touting his return to Iraqi politics, as he did in today’s press conference.

In an astounding and blatantly treasonous assertion for a U.S. citizenship holder, he stated that “the [insurgency] in Iraq is a legitimate resistance [movement] and it is against occupation and any resistance in the world against occupation is considered legitimate, and I hope that the [insurgency] continues and avenges the Iraqi people and I look forward to expanding its political agenda.”

I know there’s free speech and all, but isn’t calling for more attacks on U.S. troops a violation of sorts? Isn’t it ethically reprehensible? If Alsammarae’s citizenship can’t be revoked, can’t he be prosecuted on something else?

I’ve heard that Alsammarae allegedly fled Chicago because the authorities were going to get him on tax evasion. I guess his resemblances to Al Capone’s lifestyle—something that Alsammarae once boasted of in a press interview—go all the way.

Now, he wants more insurgent attacks on U.S. troops. What a slime-bucket, but he’s the same slime-bucket that I’ve always thought he was, from the days before the war when he opportunistically hopped onto the anti-Saddam bandwagon when it began revving up for real.

I had seen part of Alsammarrae’s General Intelligence Directorate file back in Baghdad, and he’s identified as a snitch that had worked for the Saddam regime while he was a student in the 1970s, reporting on the political activities and utterances of fellow Iraqi students then pursuing their degrees in the UK.

In another vein, Alsammarrae also tells Radio Sawa that he’s contributed money to the Obama campaign. I wonder how Obama would react to a paycheck and an endorsement from ex-con buddy of Rezko’s who is now braying for more American soldiers to be killed.

Alsammarrae claimed that he was on his way back to Iraq after being let off the legal hook under the amnesty law, and that he is set to re-join Ayad Allawi’s political coalition.

*****************
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/17/former-republican-tied-to-rezko-swtiches-sides-backs-obama-terrorists-in-iraq/

Not only do Alsammarae and Obama share a connection with Tony Rezko, they also share a taste in movies. Here he is explaining his improbable escape from an Iraqi prison (where he was held on corruption charges) in 2006:

When asked how he could have pulled off such an escape, Mr. Alsammarae, who moved to Chicago in 1976 but returned to Iraq just after the invasion, laughed uproariously for 20 seconds. Then, recycling a famous line from an exchange about Al Capone in “The Untouchables,” Mr. Alsammarae said with undisguised glee: “The Chicago way.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/world/middleeast/20minister.html?_r=2&oref=slogin
Escaped Minister Says He Fled Iraqi Jail ‘the Chicago Way’
(Radio Sawa is a 24-hour Arabic-language radio network that originates in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Washington and receives support from the U.S. government.)

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: December 20, 2006
BAGHDAD, Dec. 19 — In a lengthy phone conversation on Tuesday, the former Iraqi electricity minister who escaped from a Baghdad jail on Sunday ridiculed American and Iraqi officials and said he fled because he did not trust the police and had received a tip that he would be assassinated within days.

Forum: The Transition in Iraq
The official, Aiham Alsammarae, who telephoned this reporter, said, without offering proof, that he was already outside Iraq after finagling his way aboard a flight at the Baghdad International Airport.

Incredulous Iraqi security and justice officials disputed parts of his account, saying that a figure as recognizable as Mr. Alsammarae could not possibly have slipped onto a flight when he was the subject of a manhunt.

Mr. Alsammarae, who holds dual American and Iraqi citizenship, scoffed at those assertions and said they were made by officials who spent too much time inside the protected Green Zone in central Baghdad and did not understand how the country really worked.

“Those suckers who are sitting in the Green Zone, they cannot go out and see the people they are governing?” asked Mr. Alsammarae, whose unmistakable speech patterns in English reflect his Iraqi and American backgrounds. “This is a joke.

“So why I cannot take the airport? It’s not because I am a smart cookie. Any Iraqi can do it, even if they have 10,000 court orders against him. This is Iraq.”

One fact Iraqi officials could not dispute: Mr. Alsammarae, who had been jailed four months ago on corruption charges stemming from deals made when he was the electricity minister from August 2003 to May 2005, was still free.

If correct, Mr. Alsammarae’s tale of escape would mean that he not only worked his way free of the Iraqi police guarding the jail but also eluded the thousands of Western and Iraqi security forces stationed in the dense maze of checkpoints and blast walls in the Green Zone, which is the fortified heart of the American occupation and the Iraqi government.

Mr. Alsammarae was the most senior Iraqi official of the post-Saddam Hussein era to be arrested and jailed. His career over the past three years has had a meteoric trajectory, from his meeting with President Bush at the White House in September 2003 to his arrest in August.

Although an appeals court overturned his only conviction last week, he faced additional charges and it was unclear whether he could be freed on bail under Iraqi law.

His escape is a serious embarrassment for the Interior Ministry and the American-led forces that are guarding the Green Zone and struggling to shape the Iraqi police into an effective security force. Iraqi officials expressed consternation when informed that Mr. Alsammarae had telephoned a reporter while on the lam.

“I have no information,” said Brigadier Abdul Karim Khalif, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. “He escaped from us.”

Mr. Khalif did say that the police chief and his assistant at the station where Mr. Alsammarae had been held were under arrest and that they were being questioned on the escape.

“We are not just embarrassed by that, but we are very angry with our employees and this thing should not happen again,” Mr. Khalif said.

Mr. Khalif said that a jailbreak was a crime under Iraqi law and that Mr. Alsammarae would be pursued on those grounds as well.

“Now, he is a fugitive from justice,” said Rathi al-Rathi, head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, whose investigation led to Mr. Alsammarae’s prosecution. “He will be on the run, and he will be pursued by Interpol for the rest of his life.”

But Mr. Rathi said he did not believe Mr. Alsammarae had left Iraq yet because the borders had been sealed. When informed of that assertion in an e-mail message, Mr. Alsammarae could scarcely contain his disdain of Mr. Rathi, whose investigations Mr. Alsammarae believes are politically motivated.

“Ask him if he wants me to stop and pick him up tomorrow and show him the way out!!!” Mr. Alsammarae wrote in response.

In a measure of just how murky the matter has become, Mr. Rathi himself has recently been accused of corruption in the finances of his own office. He has in turn dismissed those charges as political.

Mr. Alsammarae shed little direct light on the two leading theories of how he escaped: either with the help of a mysterious Western private security firm that appeared at the station on Sunday, or with the complicity of the Iraqi police.

“I don’t like to harm these people who helped me,” he said.

Despite the charges against him, Mr. Alsammarae said he did not believe that the American authorities would arrest him in Chicago. “I hope they are smarter than that,” he said.
******************************

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/rezko/917388,CST-NWS-rezko27.article

Ex-fugitive put up homes to spring Rezko
FEDERAL COURT | Ex-Iraq fugitive, a longtime pal, covers a third of his $8.5M bail

April 27, 2008

BY NATASHA KORECKI, TIM NOVAK AND CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporters
A former Iraqi official and ex-international fugitive helped spring Tony Rezko from jail earlier this month, putting up homes that comprise nearly one-third of the $8.5 million in property and cash securing Rezko’s bail, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The three homes belonging to former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae — a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen who broke out of a Baghdad jail in 2006 — are part of a long list made public in Rezko’s case Friday following a Sun-Times request. Six other individuals who pledged property to get Rezko out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center on April 18 are current or former state employees.

Who helped bail him out
Tony Rezko’s $8.5 million bail is being secured by properties and cash linked to friends and family. Here are many of those people and what they’d forfeit if Rezko flees:

* Former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae and his wife, Amura: an Oak Brook mansion and two South Loop condominiums

* Illinois Department of Central Management Services employee Mustafa Abdalla: house in Libertyville

* Shant and Layla Avakian: house in Morton Grove

* Ali M. Bagdadi and Darlene Bagdadi: two-story retail building in Chicago

* Abir Dawli: property in Emerson, N.J.

* Frederick Dawli: property in Paramus, N.J.

* Basim Dihu: house in Des Plaines

* Former Illinois Department of Central Management Services employee Ferras Elshair: house in Darien

* Illinois Public Health Department Employee Rosemarie Karim: house in Chicago

* Illinois Department of Central Management Services employee Donald J. Lynch: house in Deerfield

* Dr. George and Inam Malki: property in Heathrow, Fla.

* Roger Malki: condo in South Loop

* Illinois secretary of state employee Sue Merjan and her husband, George: a house in Orland Park and a North Side condo

* Sahar A. Nammari: home in Bartlett

* Theodora A. Ohanis: condo in Chicago

* Karam Razko: house in Hinsdale

* Burt R. Rezko: house on South Side

* Kinda Rezko: house on Northwest Side

* Rezekalla Rezko: house in Orland Hills

* Illinois Department of Central Management Services employee Jenan S. Shamoun: house in Elk Grove Village

SOURCE: Court records
Alsammarae put up $1.9 million in equity in his Oak Brook mansion, along with $840,000 in equity from two South Loop condominiums, according to court records. In recent days, he appeared in the downtown federal courthouse to pledge his property and signed papers related to Rezko’s bail. That proceeding, however, was conducted in a private session with U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve and lawyers. Records from the proceeding weren’t immediately released.

Iraqi high court cleared charges

International intrigue surrounds Alsammarae, who dramatically fled Iraq in late 2006 after being held on a corruption conviction that he maintains was groundless. Documents obtained by the Sun-Times indicate that an Iraqi high court cleared his charges. A letter dated April 8 from the High Judicial Council, Central Criminal Court, was recently sent to Interpol stating: “The decision of his conviction in absentia has been revoked by the Union Cessation Court.” However, an Interpol warrant remains active, and officials Friday would not say why.

Alsammarae and Rezko have been friends since they were classmates at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

U.S. court papers recently revealed that the feds once accused Rezko, a native of Syria, of paying Alsammarae a $1.5 million bribe when Alsammarae was electricity minister.

Alsammarae allegedly helped a firm Rezko owned, Companion Security, win a $50 million contract to train Iraqi power plant security guards, but the deal was left in limbo a month later because of a change in Iraq’s leadership.

Rezko’s lawyers have called the bribe accusation “baseless.” Attempts to reach Alsammarae were unsuccessful.

The State Department declined to comment about why Alsammarae remains listed as a fugitive by Interpol. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago, also declined to comment.

Prosecutors, however, strongly opposed Rezko’s release from jail, saying he was a flight risk.

“He has quite literally taken millions of dollars from people whom he considered his closest friends,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn McNiven said at Rezko’s bond hearing.

Defense lawyers countered that Rezko never belonged behind bars and has no intention of fleeing. They pointed out that Rezko was overseas when he was indicted and still returned to face charges.

Judge cites community ties

Rezko was arrested Jan. 28 after he failed to disclose a $3.8 million overseas wire transfer from Iraqi-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. But St. Eve said Rezko and his lawyers have, under oath, accounted for where the money was directed. St. Eve said she released Rezko in part because she was impressed by the community backing for him at trial every day.

St. Eve said that showed Rezko has ties to the community and an interest in staying in the country.

Rezko, 52, is on trial on charges that he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Gov. Blagojevich.

Sources previously told the Sun-Times that the feds are investigating Rezko’s dealings in Iraq, where Rezko also once had a contract with Alsammarae’s agency to build a power plant. As was the case with the security contract, the power plant deal never materialized.
*************************************
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/obamas_rezkoauchi_recollection.html
Obama’s Rezko-Auchi recollection
Posted April 28, 2008 8:00 AM

by Rick Pearson and John McCormick

Late last week, Sen. Barack Obama said he didn’t recall meeting a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire at a party held at the home of his former friend and fundraiser, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, on April 3, 2004, because it was in the midst of his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

Obama didn’t deny the assertion of Stuart Levine, a key witness in Rezko’s federal fraud trial, that the now-Democratic presidential contender attended the party held on behalf of Nadhmi Auchi, a British citizen appealing a fraud conviction in France. Rezko was allegedly trying to partner up with Auchi and may have been using an Obama appearance to demonstrate clout.

“I just don’t have a recollection of the event,” Obama said Friday. “As I said, I was in the middle of running a U.S. Senate race. So, you know, I was speaking all the time, probably six, seven, eight times a day.”

Obama may not recall Rezko’s party for Auchi, but he was not in the “middle” of a U.S. Senate race or speaking all the time. The Saturday party was held less than three weeks after Obama had won the March 16 Democratic primary nomination and, as is tradition, the candidates slow their immediate post-primary campaign schedules considerably before reheating the fall general election contest in late summer.

Indeed, an archived copy of an Obama “upcoming events” schedule on his old Senate campaign web site shows that on a Saturday two weeks later, he had no personal campaign activities. On Friday, April 13, the web site shows Obama touring Illinois coal-country at four morning events with the state’s senior senator, Dick Durbin.

On March 31, 2004, and Thursday, April 1, 2004, just a few days before Rezko’s April 3 party for Auchi, Obama wasn’t engaged in full day campaigning. Instead, he was on the floor of the Illinois Senate, where he advanced a measure to override a federal proposal to restrict overtime pay. On Friday, April 2, the day before the party, Obama taped a Chicago news radio interview program. And on Saturday, along with the Rezko party, Obama was among the glitterati who attended a Ritz-Carlton wedding reception.

On Sunday, April 4, Obama was on the South Side of Chicago, listening to a Palm Sunday homily at St. Sabina Catholic Church delivered by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Also in attendance in the overflow crowd were Rev. Jesse Jackson and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, as the day also marked the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

Questions for and answers from Obama, on Rezko:

“I have to say that I just don’t recall it. I mean this has been, I guess, four years ago. My understanding, through his lawyer, Mr. Auchi doesn’t recall meeting me and you know, I can’t speak for other people’s recollections. But I’ve said publicly, on many occasions, that I had a social relationship with Mr. Rezko.”

Would you remember a toast?

“I’m fairly certain I would remember giving a specific toast to somebody. Keep in mind, though, that this was right in the midst of my U.S. Senate campaign, so I was doing three or four events a day. So, I mean, there were very few events where I wasn’t speaking on anything. But I have no recollection of this particular event.”

Do you think Rezko may have been using you to kind of impress potential investors?

“As I say, I just don’t have a recollection of the event. As I said, I was in the middle of running a U.S. Senate race, so, you know, I was speaking all the time, probably six, seven, eight times a day.”

Right, but why go to this event that was specifically designed for Rezko investors?

“As I said, I have no recollection of the event. Alright?”