Assets Of Reputed CIA Front Man Frozen In Turkey
Assets of reputed CIA front man frozen in Turkey
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By Devlin Buckley
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Mar 2, 2007, 01:30
A court in Turkey has frozen the assets of Yasin al-Qadi [1] a one-time acquaintance of Vice President Dick Cheney [2] and reported “chief money launderer” of Osama bin Laden. [3]
Al-Qadi, prior to being publicly identified as a key al-Qaeda financer, owned a prominent U.S. technology firm and reported CIA front known as Ptech. [4] He also escorted U.S. officials around during their visits to Saudi Arabia. [5]
“Council of State Administrative Cases Bureau on Thursday decided to annul a lower court’s decision to rescind a cabinet order to freeze the assets of Saudi financier Yasin al-Qadi, who has been accused of financing terrorism,” the Turkish Daily News reported last Saturday. [6]
As the Daily News summarizes, this is part of a long and ongoing political dispute in Turkey: “The previous government in Turkey had ordered the assets of Qadi frozen after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, saying that he was suspected of channeling money to terrorist organizations . . . The Council of State 10th Bureau overturned the order in July on technical grounds and ordered that the assets be returned, after a challenge made by Qadi.
“Upon appeal by the government, the case was taken up to the Council of State Administrative Cases Bureau, which is the top court on such cases (and ultimately ruled to freeze Qadi’s assets).” [7]
Turkish investigations into al-Qaeda have been obstructed to protect conflicts of interest, financial and otherwise, among al-Qadi and high-ranking Turkish officials, according to dissenting investigators and government officials. [8]
Al-Qadi, as the Turkish Daily News notes, “has high-level support in Turkey, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan going on record as saying ‘I know Mr. Yasin, and I believe in him as I believe in myself,’ when speaking to NTV on July 11, 2006.” [9]
“Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal accused Erdogan’s government of blocking an investigation into Qadi’s financial affairs, focusing on reported money transfers by Erdogan’s adviser Cuneyd Zapsi to Qadi in the 1990s when Zapsi and Qadi were business partners,” the Turkish Daily News notes. [10]
As the New Anatolian explains, “The file against figures allegedly financing terror groups, including Middle Eastern-based al-Qaeda was [purportedly] dropped due to a lack of evidence, but many believed that the reason for it being dropped was intense pressure from the government on the inspectors, since several ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party members have close business ties with a Middle Eastern figure being investigated.” [11]
According to the New Anatolaian, “The history of the file goes back to late 2001 when the government of the time, a coalition led by late Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, ordered the Finance Ministry to assign inspectors to look for Turkish links to terror financiers.
“Inspectors Hamza Kacar and Galip Sabuncu wrote a report in which they claimed that they had uncovered significant evidence of money movements linked to Yasin el Kadi in Turkey, but added that their probe was blocked by certain bureaucrats and politicians.
“The inspectors said that el Kadi’s money movements were concentrated on Albaraka Turk, an Islamic finance institution, of which [Turkey’s Finance Minister Kemal] Unakitan was a shareholder and executive board member before he was elected as a deputy at the last general elections in 2002.” [12]
Similar allegations of obstruction of justice and dereliction of duty have been reported here in the United States, where following the 9/11 attacks FBI agent Robert Wright and other members of his unit claimed that their investigation into Yasin al-Qadi had been repeatedly blocked by higher ups at the FBI. [13]
As Agent Wright told ABC News in 2002, “the supervisor who was there from [FBI] headquarters was right straight across from me and started yelling at me: ‘You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects.’” [14]
According to Agent Wright, who seized $1.4 million directly linked to al-Qadi in 1998, [15] it is very likely that 9/11 would have been prevented if he had simply been allowed to do his job. [16]
Over the course of Wright’s investigation, however, al-Qadi was apparently assisting the CIA in Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, and the United States itself. [17]
Al-Qadi owned a Massachusetts-based technology firm and defense contractor known as Ptech, which, according to U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to 9/11 whistleblower Indira Singh, was a “CIA clandestine op on the level of Iran-Contra.” [18]
Moreover, according to Singh, a CBS affiliate in Boston “paid for private investigators to follow a couple of the Ptech people, and it did go to a mob-run warehouse area and the reports came back that basically it was a drop shipment place for drugs.” [19]
According to 9/11 whistleblower and former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, state-sponsored Turkish networks make up the “main players” in Afghanistan’s illicit opium trade. [20]
Such groups, according to Edmonds, “purchase the opium from Afghanistan and transport it through several Turkic speaking Central Asian states into Turkey, where the raw opium is processed into popular byproducts; then the network transports the final product into Western European and American markets via their partner networks in Albania.” [21]
Coincidently, in December of last year, as reported by The American Monitor, al-Qadi’s assets were confiscated in Albania, where he reportedly assisted the CIA to funnel covert support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Such operations were reportedly financed using opium profits. [22]
“Since the 1950s,” Edmonds notes, “Turkey has played a key role in channeling into Europe and the U.S. heroin produced in the “Golden Triangle” comprised of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. These operations are run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT (Turkish Intelligence Agency) and the military.” [23]
According to Edmonds, “The Turkish government, MIT and the Turkish military, not only sanctions, but also actively participates in and oversees the narcotics activities and networks.” [24]
“We know that Al Qaeda and Taliban’s main source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics,” Edmonds notes, adding, “we know that Turkey is a major, if not the top, player in the transportation, processing, and distribution of all the narcotics derived from the Afghan poppies, and as a result, it is the major contributing country to Al Qaeda.” [25]
Yassin al-Qadi was also affiliated with Bosnia’s wartime president, Alija Izetbegovic, the recipient of substantial CIA support during the Bosnian civil war. [26] To fund these operations, the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Turkey, and Iran, in collaboration with a “range of radical Islamist groups,” established a “vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia.” [27]
NOTES
1. “Council of State freezes Qadi’s assets,” Turkish Daily News, February 24, 2006.
2. Dan Verton, “Ptech workers tell the story behind the search,” Computer World Magazine, January 17, 2003, quoting Ptech Chairman and CEO Oussama Ziade; “Treasury action smacks of arrogance, violates human rights, says Al-Qadi,” Arab News, October 14, 2001.
3. Jeff Johnson, “Tearful FBI Agent Apologizes To Sept. 11 Families and Victims,” Cybercast News Service, May 30, 2002.
4. “Customs searches software firm near Boston,” CNN, December 6, 2002; Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Dollars of Terror,” Front Page Magazine, April 18, 2005; Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, “The Business of Terror,” Front Page Magazine; Indira Singh, Testimony at the 9/11 Citizens’ Commission Hearing, September 9, 2004.
5. Merrie Najimy, “Support Ptech Employees,” The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee- Massachusetts, March 2003; Lynn Grant, “Hastert’s Turkish Allies Tied to Bin Laden,” International Post, August 15, 2005, quoting The Boston Globe.
6. Ibid., 1.
7. Ibid.
8. “Judiciary resumes controversial terror financier case,” The New Anatolian, February 23, 2007; Ibid., 1.
9. Ibid., 1.
10. Ibid.
11. “Judiciary resumes controversial terror financier case,” The New Anatolian, February 23, 2007.
12. Ibid.
13. “FBI AGENT ROBERT WRIGHT SAYS FBI AGENTS ASSIGNED TO INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS CONTINUE TO PROTECT TERRORISTS FROM CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS,” Judicial Watch press release, September 11, 2002.
14. Brian Ross and Vic Walter, “FBI Called off Terror Investigations,” ABC News, December 19, 2002.
15. Ibid., 3.
16. Transcript of Judicial Watch press conference, National Press Club, May 30, 2002.
17. Devlin Buckley, “Ptech owner’s assets confiscated in Albania,” The American Monitor, January 16, 2007.
18. Ibid., 4.
19. Indira Singh, Testimony at the 9/11 Citizens’ Commission Hearing, September 9, 2004.
20. Sibel Edmonds, “The Hijacking of a Nation, Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals,” National Security Whistleblowers Association, November 29, 2006.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 17; M. Bozinovich, “Independence: Kosovo Albanian Criminal Enterprise,” Serbianna.com, February 11, 2007.
23. Ibid., 20.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Devlin Buckley, “Scratching the Surface,” The American Monitor, November 16, 2006.
27. Richard J Aldrich, “America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims,” The Guardian, April 22, 2002.
Devlin Buckley is a freelance writer and journalist residing in Troy, New York. His website is the American Monitor. You may reach him at PDevlinBuckley@TheAmericanMonitor.com.
