Scott Ritter Speaks Out On 2001 Arrest - Offers his first public comments on controversy

WNYT-TV, Albany ^ | January 22, 2003

[Shermy]

ALBANY, N.Y., Jan. 22 - Until now, former U.N. weapon's inspector Scott Ritter has declined to speak about allegations he was arrested in an Internet sex sting 19 months ago. However, NewsChannel 13 reached Ritter by phone Wednesday and for the first time he discussed the arrest and the sealed court documents.

...snip...

"The case was dismissed. Therefore it never happened," Ritter said Wednesday.

"I stood in a court of law, before a judge and an assistant district attorney, and they dismissed it," he added.

But the court of public opinion has a different view. The story of Ritter's arrest and the subsequent dismissal of his case first broke over the weekend and dominated headlines in the days that followed.

"I am deeply saddened [by all of the media attention]. Not by anything I've done though."

Ritter refused to speak to NewsChannel 13 on camera. When offered the chance to tell his side of the story on television, he replied, "I'm saying it now."

...snip...

[kcvl]

Marina KHATIASHVILI
Born Tbilisi, Georgia, March 10,1953; Education: Tbilisi State University (Diploma Engineering, Chemistry) 1979; Intellectual Property and Innovation Institute, Moscow 1989; Languages: Georgian, Russian, German; Practice area: Intellectual Property, Chemistry

---

Former Weapons Inspector In Iraq Difficult To Pigeonhole
By GEORGE EDMONSON / Cox Washington Bureau
09-10-02




Ritter also divorced and later married Marina Khatiashvili, who had been a translator and escort when he was in the USSR, according to Washingtonian.

The couple and their twin daughters have been living in Delmar, near Albany, for a couple of years.

"He mentioned to me that he came here because he had a friend in the area," said David Grand, who lives near Ritter in the decades-old suburb.

Grand has also played an occasional round of golf with Ritter at Colonie Country Club in nearby Vorhesville where both men are members. "He's a competitive golfer," said Grand, who recently witnessed Ritter score a hole-in-one during a tournament at Colonie.

The two have never discussed politics or Iraq, Grand added.

That topic never comes up at the fire station either, said William Wright, chairman of the board of fire commissioners. Ritter joined in October and said it was his first experience fighting fires, Wright added.


http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:3i7xn_X7FwwC:www.coxnews.com/washingtonbureau/staff/edmonson/091002RITTER10.html+Marina+Khatiashvili&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Howlin]

Fox News getting ready to cover this on The Grapevine.

[The Great Satan]

Are you being investigated for espionage?

I've been called a spy of Israel since 1996, and since I made my documentary film in 2000 the FBI has investigated me as an agent of Iraq. The FBI has also opened up an investigation into my wife calling her a KGB spy. So there is this form of harassment taking place.

Did you write a report, at the time you were doing inspections in Votkinsk in the Soviet Union in 1988 that said the group your wife worked for was full of spies?

No. I indicated that given past models of Soviet penetration techniques that these young girls, of which my wife was one, who were brought in by the Soviets to carry out translation services had been used in the past to attempt sexual compromise. I subsequently wrote a series of reports that said this did not appear to be the case in Votkinsk. In fact, because of the human intelligence work I did in the Soviet Union I was able to ascertain that the girls were actually dissatisfied with the Soviets. They showed a tendency to speak out against the KGB to the U.S. inspectors.

You've spoke about having seen the children's prisons in Iraq. Can you describe what you saw there?

The prison in question is at the General Security Services headquarters, which was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children — toddlers up to pre-adolescents — whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace.

Scott Ritter in His Own Words - TIME, Sept 14, 2002

[YaYa123]

Quick, Brit on FOXNews is about to tell us the real skinny on why Ritter canceled his Baghdad trip.

[RippleFire]

BUMP

[Deb]

Got no sources for my theories. That's why I said "I bet". The sources for the Albany connection are just the Wall Street Journal and American Spectator stories about all the union/leftist organizations that were involved in Clinton campaign corruption. Ickes turned out to be at the bottom of it all, but Betty Jo White "declined to prosecute". Like his Dad, Ickes was deep into union organizing and union leftist ties.

Clinton and Ickes went to lots of trouble to make it look like Ickes was fired and banished from the White House, but he then magically turned up back in NY and running Hillary's Senate run. Few papers reported this.

My theory has always been that Ickes was the true evil power behind the Clintons. Check, "Who is Harold Ickes?" in the Wall Street Jounal.

[riri]

It seems he's imposed his own sentence on himself. Voluntarily moving to Albany, NY-talk about self loathing.

[VOA]

"I am deeply saddened [by all of the media attention]. Not by anything I've done though."

In other words, Ritter is not ashamed of going for underage booty.

Parents and adminstators of schools lock up your girls of age (oh, lets say)...12-20!

And the boys while you are at it.

No telling what sort of perversion a female-seeking pedophile (OK, "ephebophile")
will do when the girls are not available...

[TLBSHOW]

Ritter is still planning to give discussions about the crisis with Iraq here in America.




He's slated to be at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., on Jan. 30 for a free discussion which is open to the public.

He's also scheduled to give a free speech Feb. 12 at Schenectady County Community College in New York. There are no plans to cancel Ritter's appearance, for which he'll be paid $4,000, SCCC spokesperson Heather Meaney told the Times Union.

"We researched him and decided to have him here in February," she said.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30618

[bvw]

Scott's explanation in that Ruskie translator-girl bit is even more troubling "segwayed" against his inane denials regarding the virtual-14-year-old-girl troubles.

[spectre]

The ENTIRE interview from Scott to her other guest, "Tom Curran", consisted of ALL, but just a couple of sentences, bashing the timing of the leaking of the information. How many times? How long was the interview, is the answer.

She ended with calling for the republican political "dirty tricks should be investigated".

BTW, Scott Ritter was given 6 months of Counseling and is the father of young twin daughters.

sw

[kcvl]

After the war, Ritter resigned from active duty and returned to the Soviet
Union to look into a job with an American firm and to look up Khatiashvili.
After they got married in 1991, the FBI launched an investigation into
whether Ritter represented a risk to national security. Marrying a foreign
national would ultimately cost Ritter his high-level security clearance when
he became a U.N. weapons inspector and had to, as he put it, "interact with
the intelligence community."

http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:MxcGv5ryd9YC:www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg01913.html+Marina+Khatiashvili&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[BushCountry]

I think Ms. Crier has requested our opinion of her comments.

crierlive@courttv.com

[Carolinamom]

Married to second Mrs. Ritter in 1991. Their twin daughters could not be more than 10 or 11 years old. How in Heaven's name could he DO what he's been caught doing? And how many times has he done it and not gotten caught? What about his treatment of his own daughters? At the least, one wonders.

[Dog]

Brit Hume just ran this story and said Ritters trip to Iraq is cancelled..

[Howlin]

This morning on Fox news, Judge Nepolitano, a fixture on Fox talk shows, said the action that was taken in the Ritter case actually allows him to deny that he was ever arrested if asked. Such is the law.

Court TV said he HAS to put it on job applications. He HAS been arrested.

[Southack]

Iraq doesn't have the Intelligence "reach" to trap a former weapons inspector while in the U.S.

On the other hand, spies from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia (where Islamic radicals base their troops for their raids into Chechnya against the Russians) do have that reach...

[aristeides]

Thanks. So Marina Ritter was 35 in '88, older than I suspected. Does seem a bit odd to describe her as a "young girl." I wonder if that birth date might be wrong.

Very odd that a Russian in the old Soviet Union -- especially one who may have worked for the KGB -- should specialize in intellectual property, even to the extent of going to an institute specializing in the subject. Could, I suppose, be a cover for KGB training in some classified subject.

[Charles Martel]

Ritter also divorced and later married Marina Khatiashvili, who had been a translator and escort when he was in the USSR, according to Washingtonian.

Perhaps it's been asked already, but... are there any pictures of Ritter holding a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle?

[spectre]

I'm going to email her and ask her if Child Molesters are only guilty if they are Republicans...She will understand that comment.

sw