Major Frakt and Dennis Edney struggling for Justice at Guantanamo Bay

As a small postscript to the curious legal process that the illiterate Afghan Mohammed Jawad is currently enduring after 7 years imprisonment, Omar Ha-Redeye blogs on August 24th, 2008 at Slaw.ca a cooperative Canadian weblog on things legal , about meeting with Major Frakt who acts as Mohammed's defence counsel.

For reasons unexplained, Omar had breakfast yesterday with Major Frakt and Dennis Eadey a defence lawyer from Edmonton, Alberta.

Major Frakt (B.A. summa cum laude, University of California, Irvine, History,1990; J.D. cum laude, Harvard Law School 1994) is also currently a faculty member at Western State University, Dennis Edney represents the only Canadian citizen at Guantanamo, Omar Khadr. (another story again)

Over coffee and croissants Frakt outlined the odd legal blackhole created at Guantanamo. Two-thirds of the inmates (?) won't ever be charged (because there is nothing to charge them with) and in this curious Alice in Wonderland of Mr John Yoo, cannot therefore effectively challenge their detention in any way. See post Thursday, June 19, 2008 Smelling the coffee..how the Famous Five lawyers of the "War Council" ripped up the United States obligations under the Geneva Conventions - and a long, long time ago Tuesday, December 06, 2005 Yoo. Who? ... Lawyers at War - No uniforms, no guns, but some great ideas

For the remaining third, their defence involves immense problems related to discovery, the limit counsel have to access of scret "evidence" which prevents counsel from providing and sensible, rational or effective representation.

In the absence of a corpus of common law, the lawyers have the difficulty of not having any precedent to draw from - the judges and the courts are basically making it up as they go along.

Frakt choked up with emotion when describing his cleint's position. Despite not believing in suicide as a moral option, Jawad had considered it to escape the horrors of his situation.

Edney provided more information on the conditions the "rendered suspects" had to endure.

When being transported, they were not given any food for three days… They were given water only for a day and a half, just enough to sustain their bodies… the reason was so they did not use the toilet while in transit.

Edney was quite clear that Canada was complicit in this abuse, and did not allow Harper any reprieve for his inaction. He is currently bringing a suit against him for it (n.b., he does hold Liberals just as responsible).

The Canadian Bar Association has come out in support of this issue

Edney raised concern about the way , in January 2007 Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles "Cully" Stimson threatened corporate lawyers who agree to defend the men and boys imprisoned at Gunatanamo Bay. Flashing a list of corporations that use law firms doing this pro bono work, Stimson declared, "Corporate C.E.O.'s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists."

For more on his activities see post Saturday, February 03, 2007 "Cully" Stimson not only a cunt - now he's quit. also Saturday, January 13, 2007 Cully Stimson - why is this cunt still in a job ?

From smug bastard to sore loser in 2 weeks - and it was ..."his own decision to resign and he was not asked to leave by Defense Secretary Robert Gates." Ho.Ho.Ho.

Massive UBS scheme to help US taxpayers to defraud IRS of tax on at least US$18 Bn.

We covered the whistleblower Heinrich Kieber, 42, who stole confidential information on tax evaders from the Liechtenstein bank LGT Trust Ltd. which is owned by the Leichtenstein Royal Family - Monday, March 03, 2008 Whistleblower sells Leichtenstein tax dodging details of the German and US business elites to the Bundesnachrichtendienst and Uncle Sam

Faced with a federal investigation into its private banking practices, the Swiss banking giant UBS said on Thursday that it would stop offering offshore banking services to clients in the United States.

Mark Branson, CFO of the UBS global wealth management group, told a US Senate subcommittee that the company apologised (doesn't everyone these days ?) would provide banking or securities services to United States residents only through companies licensed in the UK. he said they would help the Federal Government identify American citizens engaging in tax fraud.

The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations released a report on Wednesday saying that UBS’s offshore practices helped American citizens hide an estimated $18 billion in 19,000 accounts from the Internal Revenue Service.

Clients in the United States will still be able to access UBS’s services through wealth management units that are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Swiss based advisers will not be allowed to come to the United States to meet with American clients - they probably will be jailed if they do!

The committee also heard anonymised taped testimony from Heinrich Kieber blowing the whistle who is on a witness protection program - see pic.

The subcommittee’s report said that both LGT and UBS helped Americans avoid taxes by setting up convoluted foreign-owned offshore accounts whose assets did not have to be reported to the I.R.S. That practice by LGT, UBS and other offshore companies costs the Treasury Department US$100 billion annually in lost taxes. Which is a lot of unpaid tax.

The report (which is truly eye opening and reads like a novel) commences ...

"Each year, the United States loses an estimated $100 billion in tax revenues due tooffshore tax abuses. Offshore tax havens today hold trillions of dollars in assets provided by citizens of other countries, including the United States. The extent to which those assets represent funds hidden from tax authorities by taxpayers from the United States and other countries outside of the tax havens is of critical importance"

Both LGT and UBS have what are known as qualified intermediary agreements with the I.R.S., which were established in 2001 to allow the revenue service to collect taxes with the help of foreign banks.

Such agreements have never mandated reporting accounts held by non-American citizens or companies, a loophole that Senator Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota and the ranking subcommittee member, said that LGT and UBS had expertly exploited.

But Mr. Levin and Mr. Coleman indicated that they would most likely seek legislative solutions.

The first major tax investigations have focused on Bradley C. Birkenfeld, an American and a former top UBS executive, who pleaded guilty in June to a single fraud charge of helping an American citizen conceal $200 million in assets from the I.R.S. he resigned from Union Chartyer and faces 5 years jail. He has now (June 20th) agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of UBS practices, which may reveal the names of scores of wealthy American clients.

In a seven-page statement to the court, Mr. Birkenfeld, a 43-year-old American, said UBS bankers used a variety of ruses to court American clients and help them dodge taxes.

The document reads like a how-to of high-end tax evasion.UBS advised bankers traveling to the United States to tell airport customs officials that the visit was for pleasure, not business, Mr. Birkenfeld said. The bank urged clients to destroy banking records to conceal their offshore accounts.Some American clients were told to stash watches, jewelry and artwork that they had bought with money hidden offshore in safe deposit boxes in Switzerland.

UBS also encouraged them to use Swiss credit cards so the Internal Revenue Service could not track their purchases, Mr. Birkenfeld said.The list went on.

Mr. Birkenfeld said that at times he served as a personal courier for his clients, spiriting checks out of the United States and depositing them in accounts in Denmark, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, away from the prying eyes of the I.R.S. At one point, he wrote, he even smuggled diamonds for a customer in a tube of toothpaste.Mr. Birkenfeld was a Geneva-based director of wealthy American clients with undeclared offshore accounts with UBS from 2002 to 2006.

Over all, that business oversaw $20 billion in assets and brought in revenue of $200 million a year, according to court papers.

He told Judge William J. Zloch that he knew he was breaking the law but did so because of the “incentives” UBS offered him, meaning large bonuses. Judge Zloch asked if he had not been troubled by his actions.“It did concern me, your honor,” Mr. Birkenfeld said.

.“Our position is that Mr. Birkenfeld was working at UBS where people knew exactly what was going on,” Mr Birkenfelds's lawyer Mr. Onorato said after the hearing. “He’s going to tell the government everything he knows. He is going to cooperate with the government fully,” he said, adding that Mr. Birkenfeld “had numerous U.S. clients.”Mr. Birkenfeld’s statement said he had provided evidence that “managers and bankers at the firm, including Birkenfeld,” assisted American clients in concealing their ownership of assets held offshore. His boss was Martin Liechti.

Agence France Press report that the US Department of Justice said Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to conspiring with co-defendant Mario Staggl to hide about $US200m (₤101m), attracting US$US7.2m in US taxes, through an elaborate system of fraud.

In May, Federal authorities detained Martin Liechti, a Swiss citizen and senior UBS official, in Miami in connection with the investigation. Mr. Liechti appeared before the subcommittee Thursday, but declined to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.

LGT have not testified before the subcommittee. A senior official from the company did meet with subcommittee staff members last Friday.

This week, the company sent a letter to the subcommittee refusing to testify, saying it had complied with its qualified intermediary agreement. The letter also said that company representatives would be severely limited in what they could say because of the principality’s strict disclosure laws.

Mr. Kieber, now in a witness protection program, is accused of breaking those laws.

Anonymised with a pixelated video deposition , Mr. Kieber told the subcommittee that LGT had used sophisticated methods to avoid detection by American tax authorities. LGT customers were advised to use only public phones to contact the bank, and the company mailed correspondence from nearby Austria or Switzerland, he said.

Michael Robinson, a spokesman for LGT, said in an e-mail statement to a reporter that the documents Mr. Kieber supplied dated “back to a time when the regulatory environment was completely different.”

Shannon Marsh of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., (the subcommittee report, states that Mr. Marsh hid millions of dollars in 4 foundations in Liechtenstein, )and William Wu of Forest Hills in Queens - who orchestrated a fake sale of his house to his own offshore company.

Steven Greenfield of New York refused to appear after being subpoenaed. Peter S. Lowy of Beverly Hills, Calif., will testify before the committee next Friday.

Lawyers advising clients who are afraid their off-shore accounts will be discovered can't offer much comfort. Their clients have only a few alternatives:
• Make a voluntary disclosure to the IRS, pay the tax, interest and penalties and plead for mercy (note that this approach is not viable for people with "illegal source" income, such as money from securities fraud, drugs, robbery, money laundering ;
• Quietly file amended tax returns, pay the tax, interest and penalties and hope overworked government prosecutors won't follow up; Ho.Ho.Ho.
• Do nothing and hope their names won't turn up — a very poor strategy as the odds of being discovered are high and they could be hit with stiff penalties and criminal sanctions.
• Leave the US for good.
If you have an offshore account with unreported income, you should definitely be worried.


Pack your Louis Vuitton, jump on the jet and vamoos....

Derek Pasquill, the lying mandarinate at the FCO, and the curious cse of Mr Mockbul Ali and his fascinating ideas on penetrating Islamists

The ridiculous (unelected) Attorney General and champion spectacles fiddler and adjuster, Baroness Scotland had that Derek Pasquill, 48 up in Westminster Magistrates Court On October 11th last year.

Suspended from his job at the Foregn Office and arrested the same day in January last year - he was charged on On Sept 27, with 6 offences of exposing Jack Straw as a liar and a complete twat under the Official Secrets act with disclosing a letter entitled "Detainees" - which refers to "rendition" or rather " official or State kidnapping" of terrorist suspects without charge or due legal process, representation and contrary to any legal rights of habeas corpus they may have , plus 2 curious letters "Engaging with Islamists" and "Hearts and minds and Muslims".

This extrordinary charge sheet also includes reference to two memos entitled "Egypt: the Muslim Brotherhood - terrorists?" and " Egypt: contact with the Muslim brotherhood".

Remanded on unconditonal bail until October 26th , the case was described as "complex" by Mr Pasquill's solicitor.

Lord Patel said at the time that it "would end in tears before bedtime" the principal difficulty being that Martin Bright had exposed / printed the aforesaid documents in a Policy Exchange pamphlet. Helpfully dedicated ....



Well on Wednesday (Jan 9th) at the Old Bailey all charges were dropped at the Old Bailey after senior figures within his own department had privately admitted no harm was done by his leaking a series of Whitehall documents.

Mark Ellison, counsel for the government, told Judge Peter Beaumont, the Recorder of London: "There is no longer a realistic prospect of a conviction in this case."

FCO papers that fatally undermined the case were written shortly after Pasquill's arrest two years ago, and only revealed to police and prosecution lawyers last month and the defence on Wednesday morning.

Neil O'May, Pasquill's solicitor, was incandescent (well as much as lawyers ever are) : "The prosecution was a scandal. It was a case where the government was shooting the messenger. It is clear that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office took the view that Derek Pasquill's disclosures were not damaging to international relations. Nevertheless, they let [him] suffer an investigation and arrest, a charge and a full criminal prosecution for two years before they disclosed their views."

This may or may not have been not entirely unconnected with the fact that former communities secretary, Opus Deist Ruth Kelly, her successor, leather clad tap dancer and blow up sex doll impersonator, Hazel Blears, and "The Boy" David Miliband, Foreign Secretary would have been called as witnesses.

As one of the documents Pasquill leaked revealed how little British officials knew of the US "extraordinary rendition" programme and that the practice, in the view of at least one FCO official, "is almost certainly illegal"... it is unlikely that the Ministers would have welcomed disclosing their ignorance nor their endorsement of rendition/ interrogation etc., or the fact that " .. we (do not) know whether those our armed forces have helped to capture in Iraq or Afghanistan have subsequently been sent to interrogation centres? We have no mechanism for establishing this ..."

The Observer today discloses that the FCO document that was withheld from Police and prosecution and defence was an e-mail that claimed that the disclosed documents stated ...'under no circumstances was national security threatened'.

The Observer claims that at the centre of the case is the remarkable Mockbul Ali. "An ambitious young civil servant accused by his critics of being an apologist for extreme Islamist views within Whitehall".

Jack Straw lolling on his scarlet Ottoman in his office next to Lord Levy Middle East plenipotentiary for Nu labour (fixer and purveyor of coronets for cash) , "Ali, Pasquill believed, had soft-soaped organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its spiritual leader, the controversial Islamist preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who had expressed his support for Palestinian suicide bombers and whom Ali suggested should be allowed to visit the UK. He had offered similar support for Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a Bangladeshi MP who preaches violent hatred against the West, proclaiming him to be 'mainstream'."

It eventually penetrated Straws concrete brain that embarrassed by the exposure of Ali as being too close to the Islamists, and worried at the failure to prosecute, at a time when Whitehall was awash with documents about the war in Iraq whose leaking could prove damaging inititate action.

Sir Michael Jay ,Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office was exceedingly upset. Ali reported to Pasquill at a meeting discussing the leaks that "Jay wants whoever leaked this stuff boiled in oil."

Despite the dissent expressed in the (later sup[p[ressed e-mail) instructions from on high were to push ahead regardless.

Even Baroness Dame Lady jane Pauline Neville-Jones, has been roused from her holiday slumbers demanding reviews of the Official Secrets Act - apparently ( an unbeleivanly) she was expected to be called as a witness by Pasquill's defence team to rebuff claims that his actions had damaged the UK's international relations.

In the light of the persecution by the FCO of Craig Murray and the nasty vindictive treatment of Derek Paswuill one has to wonder about the honesty, probity , not to mention the intellect and judgemnent of senior members of the FCO - and the Ministers responsible.

Meanwhile Derek Pasquill has two lost years an a tarnished reputation.

Observers might note a curious Parliamentary question that the repulsive (and fixture on Newsnight) Michael Gove raised when Mr Mockbul Ali was employed by the FCO.

...To be Continued

Omagh Bomber acquitted - FRU double agent who warned Special Branch ignored

Sean Hoey, now 38 an unemployed electrician from Jonesborough, south Armagh,was today cleared of the murder of 29 people in the 1998 Omagh bombing, the worst atrocity in more than three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.The the trial concluded on January 17 this year and Judge Weir who heard the case without a jury has taken 11 months to reach his verdict.

Judge Weir criticised the process of bagging, labelling and recording of exhibits and hit out at the "slapdash approach" and "cavalier disregard" the police and some forensic experts had for the integrity of forensic items.

Judge Weir said two police officers had told untruths in a deliberate attempt to bolster their statements and said there had been a calculated deception that made it impossible for him to accept their evidence.

Only one person, Hoey's uncle Colm Murphy a County Louth builder and publican, has ever been convicted of involvement in the blast, but his conviction was overturned in January 2005 after he had spent three years in jail - a retrial ordered by the Court of Criminal Appeal, on the grounds that two Gardaí had falsified interview notes and he now faces a re-trial. This may be delayed or forgotten about as his lawyers claime he is lawyers claiming he is suffering from short-term memory loss as a result of a car accident.

In 2003, Michael McKevitt, understood to be the leader of the Real IRA, was jailed by a Dublin court for 20 years for "directing terrorism", although the trial judge was explicit that the charges were unrelated to the Omagh bombing.

The car bomb attack on August 15 1998, killed Protestants and Catholics and left 220 wounded, many with horrific injuries. The 500 lb bomb was placed in car stolen in County Monaghan (Eire) a week before. It had its Republic of Ireland number plates replaced with Northern Ireland plates and was parked outside a clothes shop on Omagh's Market Street, less than 30 minutes after the first warning was sent to local media. (See pic : click to enlarge)

Three different warnings were received by news organisations in the province half an hour before the bomb detonated.

Discrepancies over the location of the bomb in those calls simply added to the confusion - resulting in Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers leading people towards the bomb, rather than away from it.

The bombing was carried out by the Real IRA, which opposed the Good Friday agreement that had been signed in April.In July 2001 a double agent using the pseudonym Kevin Fulton alleges he told his Special Branch handlers days in advance of the Omagh attack by the Real IRA.

Kevin Fulton was an ex Britsh soldier , a Catholic from Newry , who was given false discharge papers from his regiment and told by the shadowy military intelligence agency, the Force Research Unit (FRU), to infiltrate the IRA. As part of long- running investigations by the Sunday Herald into Ulster's Dirty War, Fulton has already claimed he warned RUC Special Branch that the Omagh bombing was being planned at least 48 hours before the Real IRA placed the bomb. *See Brig. Gordon Kerr

Hoey, who was already in jail on remand for other alleged offences, was charged with the murders and multiple other crimes in May 2005. See Lord Patel's post Omagh bombing: man faces murder charges:6.14PM, Wed May 4 2005

The trial eventually began in September 2006. Hoey pleaded not guilty to 58 offences,(2 were dropped). Today his mother Ritea, said outside the court : "I want the world to know that my son Sean Hoey is innocent."

The early proceedings were dogged by controversy as it emerged that some witness statements had been lost and others altered. During the 56-day trial, prosecutors tried to tie Hoey to the Omagh bombing and other explosions by using DNA evidence specifically a type called low copy DNA. But his lawyers challenged the evidence, claiming it was unreliable.

Hoey's defence team repeatedly argued that the police had tampered with evidence and that exhibits had been wrongly labelled. They said there had been a police 'conspiracy' to 'bury' evidence. They also challenged the integrity of some of the police and forensic witnesses.

In this much awaited verdict Judge Weir quoted a judgment by the Court of Appeal, which said justice demanded " proper evidence and not merely evidence which might be true to a considerable extent, probably is true, but which was so convincing in truth and manifestly reliable that it reached the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt."

He went on to say : “The evidence against the accused in this case did not reach that immutable standard. Accordingly, I find Mr Hoey not guilty on each of the remaining counts of the indictment.”

So all the FRU and their state paid assassins can sleep a little more comfortably as their secrets don't surface in a court .. again.

Mile End enquiry and Metronet resolution still miles away

Shortly after 09:00 hrs on 5th July 2007 a westbound Central Line train in the tunnel between Mile End and Bethnal Green hit a tarpaulin on the line. Five axles of the train derailed.

Over eight hundred passengers were evacuated from the train in the accident and the one following, (in temperatures up to 100 F). A small number of minor injuries and one more serious injuries resulted not from the accident but during the evacuation of the passengers along the tunnel - which took over two hours. Eleven peope attended hospital. The train, track and signalling equipment all suffered damage.

On Wednesday, September 05, 2007 Lord Patel pointed out that the report into the events that day were still awaited. Metronet - CMT - Tube safety, PPP disaster and emergency services .. questions after Mile End still to be answered

A litle bird inside Rail Accident Investigation Branch , Geoff Thorne who is the Lead Inspector - Mile End Derailment tells me that ..

The investigation into this incident is now complete except for one test on the leading car of a Central Line Train. This is being planned for the near future. This test will confirm that the derailment mechanism is correctly understood.

The report is currently undergoing final drafting after which it will be subject to a number of internal checks. The draft report will then be sent out for the mandatory consultation with the industry parties concened. This is likely to take three weeks. Provided that no issues arise that require some further investigation or a further review of the evidence, then a publication date of mid November appears likely.

Meanwhile the funding / take over / nationalisation of Metronet becomes no clearer - Dan Milmo writing recently in the Guradian about administrator Alan Bloom's attempt to drum up some private bidders has been scuppered by disagreements about indebtedness between Transport for London (TfL) and Metronet prior to administration.

TfL has provided emergency funding of up to £900m to allow Metronet to carry out its tasks while in administration. TfL has admitted that it does not have £900m "lying around in Tim O'Toole's sock drawer" and will (surprise, surprise ) need the government to plug the funding gap.

No doubt any decision taking will be left until the election is over...because if Mr Cameron and his Oxford drinking chum Boris have no idea what to do about this fucking PPP scandal, neither have the Scottish Tweedledum and Tweedledee at Nos 10 & 11.

Clive Mitchell, the BBC, and their fulsome, flowing praise for the shy retiring modest Michael Caplan QC - legal shysters to Pinochet and the McCanns

Does one detect the immaculately manicured hand of Clive Mitchell , the top Press liason man at Downing Street, in the timely production by the BBC of the BBC4 "Profile" this week when Clive Coleman profiles Michael Caplan QC (Kingsley Napley - Our reputation as a 'safe pair of hands' ) . The quiet unassuming but well regarded and extraordinarily well paid lawyer, who visited the Mccan's immediately they arrived back in the UK a week ago, and who is acting as their legal adviser ? (More on C Mitchell here)

Caplan of course is famous for having acted for General Pinochet when he failed to prevent his extradition on a warrant from Spain for murder. The first House of Lords judgement 3-2 for sending the bastard to Spain to meet his fate, but was re-heard when Lord Hoffman's tenuous connnections with Amnesty were revealed.

Re-heard the poor old murderer lost again despite the activities of the industrious Mr Caplan.

It was of course the then Home Secretary Jack Straw lolling at ease on his vermilion chaise longue who determined that the vile torturer was too ill to stand trial.

On his return to Chile, he boarded the aircraft in a wheelchair and then delighted his elderly crowd of fellow murderers and hangers on by walking off the aircraft like Lazarus.

At the time in a 13 page explanation Jack Straw finally relied on the Extradition Act 1989 section 'Order for return':

s.12(1) ... the Secretary of State may by warrant order [the accused] to be returned unless ... the Secretary of State decides under this section to make no such order in his case.

s.12(2) Without prejudice to his general discretion as to the making of an order for the return of a person...

Ignoring the provisions of Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 s.4(4) - reiterated in the Criminal Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Act 1991 in a General Note - which states,
The question of fitness to be tried shall be determined by a jury.

Anyway it now appears that Geoffrey Bindman, Labour's favourite solicitor (chairman of the Society for Labour Lawyers) and acting on behalf of Amnesty in the case had a polite (and private) chinwag with his chum Jack and made it clear that Amnesty would not be pursuing the matter further. On 17 July 2002, Geoffrey Bindman did respond to queries from Anti Pinochet protestors and agreed, most likely, Jack Straw "took the view that the statutory requirement for a hearing before a jury to determine fitness to be tried did not apply in this case."

In December 2001, Geoffrey Bindman was fined £12,000 at a disciplinary hearing of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors over two charges of conflict of interest and one of "improperly passing on confidential information to which he pleaded guilty.

Geoffrey (Knighted in the 2007 Honours List) is now 74 so, probably is a bit too old to take on the McCanns case - although he migh have had more influence on the final result for Pinchet than the much famed Michael Caplan.

Whatever the outcome, it is looking like a beanfeast for the gents in pin stripes. Or as one might now say, in wigs and gowns now that "Solicitor Advocates" can at the insistence of Michael Caplan wear this tokenist and mediaeval garb to demonstrate their equivalence to m'learned friends in court. Pic of Jeremy Thorpe MP gay Liberal , ex Etonian, who was saved from a murder rap by (Sir) David Napley.

You can listen to the program live (Sunday 16 September 2007 17:40-17:54 (Radio 4 FM)) or go to the Profile site and listen at any time in the next 7 days.

The BBC have thoughtfully provided what is almost a verbatim transcript of the program as " Safe pair of hands for McCanns " at BBC Online. (Ooops isn't that the tag line for Kingsley Naply -- " Our reputation as a 'safe pair of hands" - the BBC would NEVER advertise... well, for anybody. It is written by Mr Coleman ofBBC's excellent "Law in Action" who delivered the Profile advertisement broadcast

Apparently Richard Branson is chipping in £100K for the McCann's legal defense fund and encouraging others to do so - the Sunday Times reports that You Gov poll on the McCann's responsibility for the death / disapperance of their eldest daughter in the UK shows
Entirely inoccent - 20%
Responsible for Madeleine's death - 48%
Unsure / Don't know - 32%
McCanns’ high-profile campaign had made them suspicious - 40%
McCanns’ high-profile campaign had not made them suspicious - 50%

The Question does arise - Are the McCanns interests best served by having the same legal representative ?

Iraq Oil for Food - Textron Inc. agrees fraud pays Fines

The Department of Justice (DOJ) have announced an agreement by Textron Inc.(Textron Inc. is an $11 billion multi-industry company operating in 32 countries with approximately 40,000 employees) to pay fines totalling US$1.5 Mn.after admitting that between 2000 and 2003, 3 of Textron's David Brown French subsidiaries in its Fluid and Power Business Unit paid a total of approximately US$600,000 to the Iraqi government. This involved inflating the price of contracts by 10 percent before submitting the contracts to the United Nations for approval.

The subsidiaries concealed from the United Nations the fact that the price contained a kickback to the Iraqi government.

The DOJ has agreed not to file criminal charges against the company or its subsidiaries in recognition of Textron's early discovery and reporting of the improper payments; Textron's' thorough review of those payments as well as its discovery and review of improper payments made in other countries, including India, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates; and the company's implementation of enhanced compliance policies and procedures.

In a related SEC civil injunctive action filed earlier today, Textron agreed to pay approximately $3.5 million in disgorgement and civil penalties.

There are no criminal charges involved in the settlements and no Textron officers were involved. Disciplinary action has been taken with respect to certain individuals (not named) involved in the matter, including in some cases, termination of employment.

To put this admission of breach of UN sanctions in perspective .....

The UN-established Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, named politicians in Russia, France, Britain, Italy and other nations who were given favours by Saddam in his quest to get 1990 UN sanctions lifted.

More than 2,200 companies, including major concerns like DaimlerChrysler, Siemens and Volvo, and the UK Weir group, made illicit payments totalling $US1.8 billion to Saddam Hussein's government during the UN oil-for food program.

The report said that under the program Iraq sold a total of $US64.2 billion of oil to 248 companies, of which 139 paid illicit surcharges.

In turn 3,614 companies sold $US34.5 billion of humanitarian goods to Iraq and the Volcker report said 2,253 paid kickbacks.

The total that Iraq made from the companies, which were registered in 66 countries, was $US1.8 billion .

No verdict in the "the biggest terrorism trial in Britain since the IRA cases of the 1970s"

Omar Khyam, 25, Shujah Mahmood, 20, Waheed Mahmood, 35, and Jawad Akbar, 23, all from Crawley, West Sussex, Anthony Garcia, 25, of Barkingside, east London, Nabeel Hussain, 22, of Horley, Surrey, and Salahuddin Amin, 32, of Luton, Bedfordshire, deny conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between 1 January 2003 and 31 March 2004.

Judge, Sir Michael Astill, 69 (pic -Knighted 1996) told the jury of 12 of their peers, sound men (well 5F 7M) and true, on Friday April 14th (they had been deliberating for 21 days) he would now accept a majority verdict of either 11-1 or 10-2 if they were unable to reach unanimous verdicts on all the charges.

Doesn't sound as though they are ready to agree on any basis in "the biggest terrorism trial in Britain since the IRA cases of the 1970s.". Maybe the extraordinary testimony of Mohammed Judaid Babar, a 33-year-old New York City university dropout and convicted terrorist .... When he arrived in Pakistan (where he went to learn to fight) , he said he met 15 to 20 other men, many from London and the bedroom community of Crawley. They also were there "to fight."

Do you recall the names of those men? Mr. Waters asked.

"Ausmann," better known as defendant Omar Khyam, 24.

"Abdul Waheed," -- defendant Waheed Mahmood, 33.

"Abdul Rehman," -- defendant Anthony Garcia, 27.

"Khalid," -- defendant Salahuddin Amin, 30.

"Tanweer, from London." One of the four suicide bombers who killed themselves and 52 London subway and bus commuters last July 7 was Shehzad Tanweer, 22.

This ace witness had arrived in court in a screaming police convoy that deposited Mr. Babar at the Old Bailey after retrieving him from the secret location where he is being hidden. Overhead, police and media helicopters trailed the speeding caravan to the courthouse, where it was met by a squad of intimidating London police officers wielding large black military assault rifles.

UPDATE 30/4/07 Verdict 5 guilty 2 discharged. See Posts for that date.

Ronald Castree charged with 1975 Molseed murder

Ronald Castree, a 53-year-old market trader of Brandon Crescent, Shaw, Oldham, pleaded not guilty when murdering 11-year-old Rochdale schoolgirl, Lesley Molseed, more than 30 years ago appeared at Bradford Crown Court on Thursday 19th April 2007. He has been incustody since his arrest in November 2006 after DNA evidence led to his identification.

He was remanded in custody until his trial on 22 October. It is expected to last for nine weeks.

Several Rochdale residents who either worked with or knew Mr Castree at or about the time of Lesley Molseed’s disappearance, have recently been questioned by police in connection with the inquiry.

(link)For more information about the case and how In 1994 DCI Richard (Dick) Holland, CS Dibb and forensic scientist Doctor Ronald Outteridge were formally charged with suppressing evidence in 1994. It was alleged they had destroyed the forensic evidence which could have proved the innocence of Stefan and the guilt of the real murderer.They also withheld statements from the defence, which proved the whereabouts of Stefan on the day of the murder.

Mystic Meg predicts BBC injunction will lead to collapse of Karaoke King and Cabinet Office cutie

The Metropolitan Police specifically requested the Attorney General to prevent publication of a BBC story, acting independently of Government the Attorney General asked for an injunction to prevent the BBC broadcasting a news story for the 10 O'Clock News after a two-hour hearing in chambers at the Royal Courts of Justice - curious really given their record for predicting events ...like buildings collapsing..

The Guradian claims "fresh allegations "

The Torygraph says "In a statement the BBC said that its report on cash-for-honours was a "legitimate matter of public interest".

Regular readers have already been informed by the story of Monday January 29th " Copping a plea - conspiracies fall apart both sides of the Atlantic how Tony Blair met Plod on his way to Davos with his solicitor in Red Lion Square, W1 to chat over the Earl Grey about Cash for Coronets ......latest news (Sat am) that injunction relates to Contempt of Court Act, release of info may lead to someone doin' a runner Guv .. so checks have been stepped up on the El Al departure lounge at Heathrow. Meanwhile Mr McTernan is very, very, busy working very, very hard to acheive a justifiable Labour Victory North of the Border. Apparently he is a religious soul and has given to praying a great deal for divine help and maybe inspiration.

Regular readers will also wait for a lot longer before the Press discover the source of silicon in petrol choking the cars of Tesco and Morrison's customers.

Oz Prosecutor pleads guilty to child porn possession

The use of child pornography knows no boundaries of race, creed, intellect or position.

Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor Patrick Power took his computer hard drive for repair and a New South Wales State IT employee allegedly discovered an explicit video recording with pornographic footage of minors.

The IT employee reported finding the explicit material to his superiors and Power was summoned to the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions' office and, after a "brief discussion", suspended. This became public knowledge in July 2006.

Powers has indicated through his lawyer David Giddy that he will now plead guilty (and faces a 2 year jail sentence) to a single charge of possessing child pornography on his personal computer.

This plea now allows the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery to take action to remove Power, 54, from his $230,000-a- year job. The NSW Bar Association may also disbar him from his rank as senior counsel. NSW state Governor Marie Bashir may remove prosecutors for conduct including misbehaviour or conviction of a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for 12 months or more.

Chief Magistrate Graeme Henson at Downing Centre Local Court yesterday continued Power's bail and adjourned the matter to April 24 for sentencing, and ordered a pre-sentence report.

The State will import a prosecutor, Jeremy Rapke a senior counsel from Victoria to prosecute.

Liberal candidate for the seat of Epping, Greg Smith, who was acting DPP when the allegations against Power were brought to his attention warned Power that child pornography had allegedly been found on his computer, before informing police.

Apparently Greg Smith had discussed this with the DPP before speaking to Powers.

A counterpoint to the case of Derek Williams, 46, of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, who received a suspended sentence from Judge John Rogers QC in Mold Court, North Wales yesterday because the UK prisons have insufficient room for perpetrators of similiar crimes.(BBC)

Simply searching in Google news on "kiddie porn" or "child porn" (over 100 reports worldwide in English datelined 22/23/24/25 th Jan) discloses an international epidemic of similiar cases. e.g a Police officer (now resigned) from Lancashire Police who pleaded guilty to possession of images and repeatedly viewing and deleting images for 11 months. He was put on the Sex Offenders Register for five years and sentenced to 2 months supervision, during which he must attend the Internet Sex Offenders Treatment Programme and was ordered to pay £100 costs. Lancashire Evening Post 23/1/07 "Child porn policeman avoids jail"

Curioser and Curioser .... Len Duvall was NOT implying Cabinet Minister Ms (or Mrs ?) T Jowell was a wrong 'un

Len Duvall has been on the blower again seeking advice and after reading the Sunday Times' article today on the cash for honours inquiry he thinks some of his comments could be misconstrued as referring to the strength or nature of the evidence. This is not so. (Apparently)

So with Lord Patel's help he has issued a public statement .... 'My comments were primarily focused around my concerns for the way in which some people appeared to be questioning the behaviour, conduct and motives of police officers involved in this inquiry. What I did say was that it is wrong for anyone, no matter who they are, to attempt to interfere with or try and influence the way in which police carry out their investigations. 'Those people who made what I consider to be inadvisable remarks around recent events connected with this inquiry should reflect on the appropriateness of what they have said. 'They know the police are fully accountable for their actions and are involved in a complex and difficult investigation, and everyone should cooperate fully."

Len also wanted to add the following, which is not clear to many folks, but make of it what you will ...

"I would also like to add that on further reflection, and having had the opportunity to re-examine what Tessa Jowell said, I am now quite clear she was not commenting on the way in which police are conducting the inquiry. Also, I was not implying she or her husband were involved in any wrongdoing nor that I had evidence suggesting that was so.'

Now what can my old friend Len, Chairman of the biggest Police force in the UK mean by that ? "Mills of God" he says archly when I ask, touching his nose with his forefinger in a curious way. Soembody suggested we check the tide at Blackfriars Bridge. .... all very odd.

"Cully" Stimson generates a lot of opposition amongst the blue chip lawyers on Pennsylvania Avenue

Nice to see that Wilmer Hale 1875 Pennsylvania Avenue, members (AKA Cutler Pickering) in the list of blue chip law firms that "Cully" Stimson dislikes have been creating heavy traffic to Lord Patel's site.

They point out on their website that The American Lawyer (January 2007 Cover Story)recognized Wilmer Hale’s Ronald Machen (see pic) as one of the nation's 50 most accomplished litigators under the age of 45 in this month's issue.

The article commends Ron for his ability to generate business and quotes Litigation Department Co-Chair Howard Shapiro describing Ron, saying that clients "meet him once and they keep coming back." The magazine also commends Ron for making a successful transition to private practice after having been a federal prosecutor. Ronnie has defended The Boeing Company, the former Riggs Bank nonexecutive board, and Mitchell Wade, who pled guilty to bribing former California congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Ronnie tells us he is now defending Allied Capital Corporation in an investigation of pretexting by hedge fund short sellers. In March he is scheduled to represent Prabhat Goyal, the former chief financial officer of McAfee, Inc., in an accounting fraud trial in federal court in San Francisco.

Ronnie Machen was a very effective Assistant US Attorney in the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, US Department of Justice, from 1997 to 2001, when Lord Patel knew him . He was responsible for representing the United States in a wide range of criminal matters in both the local and federal court systems of the District of Columbia. As an Assistant US Attorney, Mr. Machen conducted grand jury investigations and prosecuted matters involving bribery, mail fraud, government contracts fraud, federal conspiracy, forgery, uttering and theft - what they call white collar crime in law school.

Useful to look at what they say on their website about their pro-bono work which "Cully" Stimson excoriates so much ...

"Because the law is still a profession as well as a business, lawyers have special obligations to the administration of justice and the development of the law.......We strongly believe that we have a responsibility to help strengthen our communities......we have been known for our record of pro bono representation and community service—a record based on the belief that there is more to our professional mandate than advocacy for the most powerful and successful members of society."

An original partner Reginald Heber Smith—considered the father of legal aid in the United States—authored the seminal book Justice and the Poor and galvanized the organized bar nationally to secure equal justice for those unable to afford counsel. More than seven decades later, in 1992, partner John Pickering led the effort to establish the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge and ensured that they were its charter signatory. Today, as measured by The American Lawyer in 2005, their pro bono program ranks as one of the top in the country - long may it continue.

Go and have a look at the stunning list of work they do ; including (just to upset "Cully")

WH Filed a habeas petition and are briefing an appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of six men who were seized in Bosnia in January, 2002 and thereafter held at Guantanamo Bay.(These were 6 Islamic clergy alleged to have plotted to blow up the US Embassy , a charge since dropped - The Algerian 6 - see more here).

Lord Patel is happy to disclose that Melissa Hoffer of WH has acted for them and spoke (video of speech here - wmv file) at the 17th Concours International de Plaidoiries -regarding the case and their treatment - described elsewhere (pdf alert) ..." They were kept naked in their cells. They were taken to interrogation for hours on end. They were short shackled for sometimes days on end. They were deprived of their sleep. They never got letters, nor books, nor reading materials. The Bosnians had the same interrogators for a while as we did and so we knew the names which were the same as ours and they were given a very hard time by those. They told us that the interrogators said if they didn't cooperate that they could ensure that something would happen to their families in Algeria and in Bosnia.

The charge against one of them, has now been reduced to "Mustafa Idr had taught Karate to Bosnian orphans."

It seems appropriate to raise this case because these 6 prisoners were arrested on January 18th 2002 - 4 years ago to the day.

Melissa (means honey in Greek)Hoffer is pro bono environmental counsel to Boston Natural Areas Network, a Boston-based non-profit dedicated to preservation and management of urban green space and community gardens. Recently, Ms. Hoffer has provided pro bono advice related to mechanisms for establishing a carbon sequestration project in South America and has counseled a non-profit organization interested in developing a renewable energy demonstration project on the Boston Harbor Islands.

Achieved what the Washington Post described as a “stunning reversal” of a miscarriage of justice in a nationally-reported case—undertaken with co-counsel from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other firms—in Tulia, Texas, in which multiple defendants, nearly all African-American, were wrongfully convicted and sentenced on drug charges based on the completely uncorroborated testimony of a white undercover agent who was later indicted for perjury. [One of The New York Times "100 Notable Books of 2005", Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town by Nate Blakeslee tells the sad yet ultimately triumphant story.]

"Cully" Stimson's nemesis draws nigh

Dean Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School has a long list of offices and awards including Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor under Clinton / Human Rights Award of the Cuban-American Bar Association in 1994 / Human Rights Award of the American Immigration Lawyers' Association in 1992. He also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to OPPOSE the appointment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general of the United States, because of his alleged role in attempting to provide legal guidance to the U.S. military justifying abusive interrogation practices, including that the War on Terror "renders obsolete" and "renders quaint" aspects of the Geneva Convention (he supports the Red Sox which is apparently a basketball team ?). He and Dean Emily A. Spieler of Northeastern University School of Law have prepared and circulated a statement in response to the apalling views expressed by DOD Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs Charles "Cully" Stimson in a radio interview critizing top US law firms for providing pro bono representation to Guantanamo detainees and implying they were being paid by shady sources.

The complete statement and the signatories list, including over 130 Deans of US Law Schools and can be accessed here (Pdf Alert)

" ... we find Secretary Stimson’s statement to be contrary to basic tenets of American law."

"At this moment in time, when our courts have endorsed the right of the Guantanamo detainees to be heard in courts of law, it is critical that qualified lawyers provide effective representation to these individuals. By doing so, these lawyers protect not only the rights of the detainees, but also our shared constitutional principles. In a free and democratic society, government officials should not encourage intimidation of or retaliation against lawyers who are fulfilling their pro bono obligations.

We urge the Administration promptly and unequivocally to repudiate Secretary Stimson’s remarks."

"We urge" ... have these folks got no balls ? .....WE DEMAND these remarks are rejected and the GUY is given his lunch pail, pink slip, the boot ..whatever ... and there's a whole slew of fancy law firms where he won't find gainful employment.

3 words for Mr Koh - CALORIE CONTROLLED DIET

Chinese Cockle Pickers - new laws and prizes all round

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) took up responsibility for licensing labour providers from April 2006. From October 1st labour providers have had to be licensed.

In a groundbreaking inititative the need for licensing used local radio adverts in a massive, huge, monstrous, lavish £30,000 campaign in English, Welsh, Polish and Portuguese. The labour provider adverts were also broadcast in Welsh in South Wales. Research of listeners to the adverts showed that the major countries of origin of workers were- Poland (41%) (75% in Lincolnshire) , Portugal (11%), Lithuania, Latvia(8%), Ukraine (7%)and Russia (6%).

Furthermore half the people interviewed could speak English, 43% Polish, 29% Russian and 14% Portuguese. The majority of workers could speak two or more languages, with English being one of them and 40% stated Polish was their main language followed by Russian (14%) and Portuguese (13%)

From Friday December 1st 2006 a new law comes into force. Anybody who uses an unlicensed labour provider operating in farming and food processing sectors will be committing a criminal offence and face penalties of up to 6 months imprisonment and a £5,000 fine.

This applies to an estimated users of labour from such labour providers - typically and traditionally called gangmasters who provide gangs of temporary and seasonal labour for agriculture and food processing.

The GLA we will be keen to hear from anyone who believes a Labour Provider is:

* Operating in breach of Licence Conditions
* Operating without a licence

Or that a Labour User is:

* Using an unlicensed Labour Provider.

If you have any concerns please contact the GLA on 0845 602 5020. This number is available during office hours 9am – 5pm.

The message doesn't seem to have got across to the Chinese cockle pickers although If you supply or use workers to gather shellfish, you can now apply for a GLA licence. You have until April 2007 before it becomes an offence to operate without a licence.

PS Breaking News The multi-agency 'Operation Lund' collected the Justice Shield from the stuck up nasty bitch, Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland and the luscious TV presenter Fiona Bruce at a ceremony in London today for their work in prosecuting the Morecambe Bay cockle picker gangmaster (see pic - 29 year old Lin Liang Ren) resonsible for at least the deaths of 23 illegal Chinese immigrants..

An enormously complex prosecution involving more than 1,500,000 pages of evidence, the trial eventually led to a Chinese gangmaster being found guilty of 21 counts of manslaughter and jailed for 14 years in March 2006.

Operation Lund involved staff from - the Crown Prosecution Service, Lancashire Constabulary, the courts and witness services, the Heath and Safety Executive, the coastguard, Lancashire County Council, Lancaster City Council, the RNLI, the Immigration Service, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the former National Crime Squad, Defra, the former Inland Revenue, the Sea Fisheries Committee, Interpol and the Chinese Embassy....and all shall have prizes.

Few will remember Lord Carlile the barrister who defended one of the defendants who accused the Home Office and the UK Immigration Service of turning a 'blind eye' to the practice of Chinese cockling.

He claimed that officials 'connived and co-opted people into acceptance of the illegal cockle trade'. The Home Office insists it did take 'robust and appropriate action." Ho. Ho. (as they say in Guangdong)

HM Customs + Assets Recovery Agency 1 VAT fraudsters 1

Dylan Creaven (31) had a chat with the UK Assets Recovery Agency(ARA) and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB). He agreed to pay the 2 bodies in September 2006;

1.£ 18Mn
2. €176,000
3. and ....Transfer ownership to them of a luxury villa in Marbella
4. and ... Transfer the ownership to them of 4 racehorses

He agreed to this because the ARA had obtained a freezing order over Mr Creaven’s assets worth €22m including a €1.2m mansion in County Clare and bank accounts in the Middle East and US. It was claimed these assets had been acquired as a result of unlawful trade through SiliconTechnologies Europe Limited, a company set up by and under the directorship of Mr. Creaven.

This was after a jury of 7 woman and 5 man at Blackfriars Crown Court in March 2005, took a month to listen to the evidence and 8 hours to return a unamimous verdict of not guilty to charges of fraud amounting to £162m. These Charges were later reduced to two charges of conspiracy to defraud the public revenue.

Mr Creaven told the court he had traded in good faith and was "distraught" to find himself in the dock.

Customs and the Irish Garda had undertaken “Operation Chipstick” to jointly investigate Silicon Technologies Europe Ltd which turned over €417m in 2000 to 2001 trading in silicon computer and memory chips.

In another case The Guradian reported at the time a related trial 8 men and 1 woman on charges of £100Mn VAT fraud had the trial stopped by the judge. After 40 days of a pre-trial hearing during which the judge heard defence evidence that not all documentation that should have been given to it had been disclosed by Customs.

UK Customs - success in their war on VAT carousel fraud

The French Connection

UK citizen Mark Selby (39) ran Maple Link France (SARL) in the period May to May 2003/4. £326.5 Mn. (!) was credited to Mr Selby's company account , as payment for telephones sold to twelve UK companies and to Spanish traders who in turn supplied the same 12 UK companies.

These UK companies then failed to pay the VAT due to HMRC resulting in the theft of VAT ( and money from the taxpayer) of approximately £57 million.

Selby was extradited from France in November 2004 and pleaded guilty on Friday 16th June 2006 at the Royal Courts of Justice and sentenced to 5 years for cheating the Revenue, 6 months for money laundering offences and 6 months each for 5 cases of contempt of court to run concurrently but consecutive to the other sentences .. a total of 6 years.

The Weybridge Three

Alexander Bell (4 1/2 years) and his brother Jonathan ( 2 years) of Walton-on-Thames, and John Palmer ( 3 years) of Weybridge, were imprisoned this week (Nov 16th), and banned from holding company directorships for their part in a £3.7 Mn VAT carousel fraud.

As well as running carousel fraud, the men were trading in pirated copies of Microsoft products.

HM Revenue and Customs raided Alexander Bell's offices during a the carousel investigation and found hundreds of counterfeit Microsoft disks and certificates and only missed prosecution by Microsoft because HMRC got their first.

The four Virgini's

Durgesh Mehta, 51, was a director of Virgini Ltd, of Chalfont St Peter a company he operated in 2003 with ;

Gerald Reardon, 55, of Molash, near Canterbury
Matthew Sharman, 43, of Langdon Hills, Essex.
Peter Ratcliff, 54, of Ashtead, Surrey.

They ran the company to apparently trade in the sale and export of mobile phones to Kiev in the Ukraine.

Virgini Ltd, claimed £10m in VAT payments during that period.Customs uncovered the fraud when it intercepted just under £1m in cash being delivered to two of the gang and found that VAT of over £10Mn pounds had been stolen.They were variously found guilty at Canterbury Crown Court on October 26th 2006 of cheating the public revenue, and conspiracy to transfer criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Mehta got 10 years and the others 8 years each and all were forbidden to become Company Direrctors for 10 years.

VAT scams used Bermuda based Transworld Payment Solutions to move money

Dutch mult-imillionaire businessman Johannes Christiaan Martinus "John" Deuss (64), who has a taste for Tattinger champagne and exceptionally pretty girls in bikinis, is/was the owner of Caribbean based First Curaçao International BankN.V(FCIB) (now in a form of administration from Sept 13th 2006 and not to be confused with First Caribbean International Bank) and was arrested in his Bermuda haven (Shore Lane, Tucker’s Town,for 30 years) -Former Bermuda Premier Sir John Swan & Bermuda businessman Ward Young posted bail of US$10Mn : "He [Deuss] is a good friend of mine. He'd do the same for me.") and transferred to prison in Holland last month , he agreed to the extradition(October 2006) .(Pic(c) Heat magazine)

It is reported his offshore bank allegedly aided UK and European VAT carousel (MITC) fraudsters, and is to be held in custody in the Netherlands for another 3 months.

The Guradian report that EU tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs told them that EU governments were losing an estimated €50bn (£33.7bn) to these VAT frauds.

His bank was apparently popular with British VAT fraudsters, and also Russian and Dutch companies involved with EU based VAT fraud. HMRC reckons every individual it has arrested for carousel fraud in the last 2 years held an account at FCIB. They suspect 2,500 + UK citizens of using the bank - it is a fair bet they also had one or two other bank accounts.

The Dutch arrest warrant listed allegations of habitual or deliberate money laundering, handling of stolen property and being in charge of a criminal organisation. Duess has hired the best and is currently engaging the services of the engaging and beautiful UK lawyer, Clare Montgomery QC (of Cherie Blair's Matrix chambers - see pic ) who successfully represented the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who fought Spanish attempts to extradite him from the UK 8 years ago. She also very recently acted to stop the launch of a share issue in Rosneft equity which it was calimed would amount to money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Poca) because 70% of the company's value came from the "unlawful seizure" of Yukos's main business, Yuganskneftegaz.

Claire famously succeeded at the appeal for solicitor Sally Clarke of murdering her two babies.

John D's lawyers are appealing (so far without success) his detention in custody.

His 60 year old sister Martina "Tineke", 60, a former director of BCB who is on the board of FCIB, was arrested in September and though she has since been released , it is understood she remains a suspect in the investigation being carried out by Dutch and British authorities.

John D. has a history of fraud in the 80's, started a life of fraud by stripping money from the Russian State oil company. The Kremlin are said to have chased him through the courts for more than 10 years before giving up - it is not known if they have had any hand in him being arrested.

Stephen Curtis, who mysteriously died in an unusual helicopter accident and had connections to UK based Russian oil oligarchs was also a director of Bermuda Commercial Bank (Total assets $754 million at April 30, 2002), Deuss's principal bank, which owned 33% of FCIB . Mayfair based Curtis had replaced Platon Lebedev late last year as Menatep director when Lebedev was arrested on tax evasion and fraud charges. and he was named in a US lawsuit brought by investors who say they lost up to $1billion after Russian oil giant Yukos collapsed.


Duess stepped down as chairman and chief executive officer of Bermuda Commercial Bank (BCB) in September when news broke that First Curacao International Bank, was being investigated for money laundering in the Netherlands and the Netherland Antilles Dutch island of Curacao.

BCB rented premises in Sir John Swan’s wonderful, shiny Bermuda Commercial Bank Building - he who so kindly posted his bail.

Deuss has some very interesting connections, in the world of international trade and commerce, for example, Vietnam spymeister Theodore G "Ted" Shackley (of Research Associates International) co-ordinated anti-Castro attacks on Cuba prior to the Bay of Pigs. He also ran Nobel Peace Prize Winner and War Criminal Harold Kissinger's secretive and undeclared wars in Laos and Cambodia , the secondary and bloody sideshows to the Vietnam war.

Shackley, AKA "The Blonde Ghost", was hired by Deuss after he left (do they ever?) the CIA 1979 to organise shipments of oil to South Africa. SA was then under a global oil embargo that Deuss's Transworld Oil cheerfully flouted, as did US tax exile Marc Rich (Clintonian pardonee - on the request of his ex-wife) who worked with Duess selling North Sea Brent Crude to the apartheid South African regime liberally spreading commissions, bribes and kickbacks as required.

This activity earned him a firebombing of his Dutch place at Berg en Dal near his birthplace in Nijmegen in the 1980's by anti-apartheid activists who called themselves, rather dramatically Pyromaniacs Against Apartheid .

It was at this time that Duess struck up a very close connection with the flamboyantly homosexual , sado-masochistic and secretive ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos.

No mean operator he featured on the front page of the WSJ in 1995 ,"Is John Deuss a Visionary or a Slick Operator? He Holds Key to the Project." , a fascinating discussion about his brainchild, the (now complete) Caspian Pipeline Consortium and the crude attempts by Chevron to push him out.

Stunning model and journalist Suzan Mazur who knows John D. @ scoop ponders (October 18th 2006) " Why Has John Deuss' Offshore Bank Been Singled Out?" and has some fascinating tales to tell.

FCIB also featured as the bankers at the collapse last year of Oz fraudster Gregory James Kennedy whose Virtual Games Global (VGG) = Pacific Delta International = World Games Incorporated (201 -2005 Canda, Sweden UK pyramid scheme with up to 450,000 members) = Aspiritus N.V.

What appears to be the basis of the case against John D is a business which started out as First Ecommerce Data Services (FEDS) a wholly owned subsidiary of First Ecom.com Inc a NASDAQ hot dot.com stock (NASDAQ: FECC,) which was described as, "FEDS is one of the first offshore credit card transaction processing companies to offer multi-currency processing and settlement .... a global, multi-currency e-payment processing solution " "FEDS provides banks and financial institutions in the Asia Pacific, Americas and Caribbean region with universal, secure, cost efficient electronic payment solutions.".. it was also a fraudsters dream banking system. So successful that it eventually became totally unecessary to physically move any goods and simply issue bits of paper and handle the TPS account accordingly.

FEDS seems to have gone the way of many dot.coms but became through Transworld Oil, Transworld Payment Solutions (TPS), a very powerful, online, global payments mechanism, for their own trading use. TPS apparently worked with FCIB clients in Europe giving them the highly desirable facility move money between accounts in real-time, 24 hours a day, and in multiple currencies.

These book transfers in the records of TPS enable EU (or anywhere else) customers to get their money out of the system, without travelling to Curaçao or Bermuda.

Notably FCIB had correspondent banking arrangements with Barclays Bank in the UK and Rabobank in Holland, and even more recently (probably coinciding with the extension of these carousel frauds involving EU / Swiss transfers) , Union Bank of Switzerland.

As HMRC activity (which only became possible under UK legislation in April 2005)started turning over some stones eachof these banks in turn shut the door on FCIB. Naturally warning FCIB clients and so FCIB had to warn many of its clients that it was being forced to shut their accounts, as without a correspondent bank in Britain, it would no longer be able to move funds for them.

It is fascinating to see that Mantas a Herndon, Va.,a banking software company and partner of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) with offices in London, New York, and Singapore. Mantas is a Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) announced in May 2006 that they had installed their Mantas Anti-Money Laundering at FCIB, this they claim ...

" .. mitigates risk with comprehensive, enterprise-wide surveillance of customer, account and transaction information to alert supervisors to suspicious behaviors. The system’s unique ability to analyze every transaction and generate risk-based alerts of suspected money laundering activities allows Anti Money Laundering and compliance officers to distinguish fraudulent from legitimate transactions. "

No doubt someone, somewhere has been able to provide similiar such services to FCIB / TWP - Lord Patel says you might start looking here and cop a look at this video about how easy it is here or if you like Mexican food here

Fuck it! Simply Google "global, multi-currency e-payment processing ".... HMCR have got their work cut out.

Manchester Crown Court Recorder Nadim linked to crime family

Judge's link to 'crime family'

Ahmed Nadim, 47 became Crown Court recorder in 2002. His sister Samiah is married to crime boss, tobacco smugggler and VAT fraudster on a massive scale, Asad Hussein Chohan, 37 who half way through a trial at which he admitted to VAT fraud of £5.7 Mn. skipped the country and is thought to be in Pakistan.

Samiah Ali Chohan last week was found guilty of being involved in the crime syndicate her husband ran with his brother and a book keeper and of money laundering involving purchasing a £350,000 property. She received 80 hours community service.

The property involved was bought by Recorder Nadim but he said he did not know it may have been acquired earlier with crime proceeds. (The Sun / Simon Hughes)

The website of his Young Street Chambers (Young Street Chambers, 76 Quay Street, Manchester M3 4PR ) claims he both fluent in in Urdu and Punjabi and "Ahmed Nadim has a particularly extensive practice in all fields of serious crime".

The Hounding of Professor Meadows by the Clark family

Professor Meadows was effectively acquitted yesterday by the Court of Appeal of the charge of serious professional misconduct brought to the Fitness to Practice Panel (FPP) of the General Medical Council (GMC) by Sally Clark's father. So ends a remorseless and zealous pursuit of this honest, hard working, sincere paediatrician by the family of Sally Clark which has wound its way through the highest Courts of the land over several years.

John Batt is a solicitor and family friend who knew Sally Clark as a child, he wrote abook which was published in 2004 " Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark " which is necessarily a partial account of the murder trial and subsequent appeals and Sally Clark's acquittal.

The whole of the case against Professor Meadows is his naive use of statistics both at the commital hearings and at the trial.

At the commital hearings he said in a witness statement ;

"For example, such a happening may occur 1:1,000 infants, therefore the chance of it happening twice within a family is 1:1m."

What he was doing was simply "squaring (multiplying 1,100 x 1,100), it is now common ground that this sttaistical treatment ... "is only valid if each of the deaths is truly independent of the other, that is without, at the very least, the shared genetic and environmental circumstances of the children being members of the same family."

At the trial he slightly refined the statement in the light of more precise information regarding the incidence of Sudden Ifant Death Syndrome (SIDS) ..."The most recent estimation of the incidence in England is that for a family in which the parents do not smoke, in which at least one has a waged income, and in which the mother is over the age of 26 years, the risk is 1 in 8,543 live births. Thus the chance of two infant deaths within such a family being SIDS is 1 in 73m." .. here he had "squared" 8,543 x 8,543 = 73 Mn.

The significance of this statistical prestidigitation slid past the Rolls Royce mind of Julian Bevan QC (who never met Sally Clark before the trial - and was replaced for the appeals) renowned as a prosecutor, and his Junior John Kelsey Fry, the other medical witnesses and the press as did the need to question Prof. Meadows remarkable statistics, subsequently described by the Royal Statistical Society as “statistically invalid”.

Probably the most outrageous thing that happened at Sally Clark's trial only became evident when the jury had given it's verdict.

At the conclusion of the trial, the judge allowed Robin Spencer QC who led the prosecution to announce that Sally Clark had received treatment at the Priory Hospital for alcohol problems. This had been revealed when Police found receipts for payment for the treatment when searching their house, long before amy charges had been laid.

In a curious agreement approved by the judge, the jury were denied hearing anything about Sally Clark's alcoholism, binge drinking or evidence concerning her character. Julian Bevan QC, that ornament of the Bar, traded with Robin Spencer QC for the defence in pre-trial hearings, silence on the alcohol problems Sally had suffered, which it was agreed had no direct bearing on the case, with an agreement not to introduce character witnesses for Sally. The world of high pay, high pressure solicitors who charge hundreds of pounds per day for their time, expertise and legal and technical skills, where taking half bottles of vodka to work and slipping out to Marks & Spencer for gin and tonic mixer drinks is outside most newspaper reader's experience.

The press of course had a field doy and stories they had been ferreting out and nursing for this day tumbled off the presses...

The Sunday Mirror: “Fall from grace for the woman with everything;” the Daily Mail, “Driven by drink and despair, the solicitor who killed her babies;” Manchester Evening News: “Pregnant days after murdering baby son.” ,”Baby killer was 'lonely drunk” headlined the Daily Telegraph.

Det. Insp. John Gardner, who led the investigation, said he was pleased with the verdicts and hoped that Clark could finally come to accept responsibility for what she had done. It had been the most difficult of tasks, he said, to confront a parent and accuse her of killing her own children. “Most people believe it is an unbelievable act. It is harder to accept when you have a woman who has advantages in life.”

Mr Gardner said of Clark's husband: “I don't know how much he knows, how much he suspects, or whether he has almost turned a blind eye to what has gone on.”

The Manchester Evening News displayed the family home under the headline - The Death House.

However, during the trial there had been a most remarkable intervention in the proceedings by the jury.

On being recalled to give evidence during the trial Dr Williams, a Home Office consultant forensic pathologist was asked to answer questions about blood samples taken from the body of Harry (the second child to die) in a written question submitted by the jury he said “…the chemistry of blood is so unreliable after death as to be of no diagnostic value…”. Of the post mortem blood sample “…it was submitted for toxicological examination and would have been sent for viral studies”.

This was a the jury that John Batt described in his book as “…most in their teens, or early twenties, one man perhaps one woman is over 40. 3 have difficulty reading the oath. They look as if they have been beamed up to an alien planet by Scotty in Star Trek”.

It was these (to Mr John Batt) apparent simpletons, who penetrated the obfuscating fog of legal terms, medical terminology, and pedantic process. It was these 12 peers, good and true, who identified the simple clear need to answer a simple clear question. A question they framed in writing and presented to the judge. Harry died, blood samples were taken, what did they show?

Faced with this clear simple question, Dr Williams, the Home Office consultant forensic pathologist produced a simple response. He lied.

Cross examined by the defence, Williams claims that the appropriate microbiology reports had been provided to the prosecution (and therefore available under disclosure to the defence). This was untrue.

The significance of the question, the actual reports and its findings eventually yielded to years of terrier like digging and pestering of statisticians, pathologists and paediatricians by her devoted and unswervingly faithful husband Steve Clark and legal defence team. On Monday 11th February 2002 the post mortem microbiology report on Harry eventually surfaces from Macclesfield Hospital. It is reviewed by leading pathologists who say that the evidence of 8 sites of Staphylococcus aureus infection in Harry's corpse and the presence of polymorphs within the cerebrospinal fluid show that Harry's death was caused by overwhelming staphylococcal infection and that no other cause of death can be sustained. It later emerges that these samples had been sent at the time to the national reference forensic laboratory at Colindale for further testing. The significance of Dr Williams remarks in answer to the jury's apparently innocent question at the trial about post mortem blood results become crystal clear.

Nonetheless it is twelve months later at the Royal Courts of Justice on January 28th 2003, that the Court of Appeal meets a second time to consider Sally Clark's case. Clare Montgomery QC (who has replaced Julian Bevan QC, that treasure of legal education), explains that there is a clear case of non-disclosure of the microbiology report, that Harry died of natural causes due to Staphylococcal infection. Invited by the court to explain, Dr Williams refuses or at least fails to appear, this is announced by Robin Spencer QC for the Prosecution.

“My Lords, Dr Williams has decided not to appear as a witness…and the prosecution no longer seeks to uphold these convictions… The Crown does not seek a retrial”

Lord Justice Kay (who died recently and was preparing to preside over the appeal of Sion Jenkins who now faces a re-trial) delivers a short verbal judgement, later expanded in written form “…The statistic 1: 73 million is clearly inadmissible in law, could not have failed to mislead the jury, and should have never been allowed in evidence… Sufficient in itself to make these convictions unsafe. Dr Williams is responsible for failing to disclose a material document, which must have affected the outcome of the trial and is a serious matter. The appeal is allowed with costs. There will be no retrial.”

The matter however does not rest there .... The murders were imaginary, apparently the faulty construct of blinkered and obtuse and elderly experts, their apparent causes illusory, the consequences unimaginable to any parent. The capacity the of medical forensic profession for increasing the population of imaginary murders was not however stilled. Earlier, Professor David Southall had seen a Channel 4 programme concerning the Clark case, a colleague of Professor Meadow. He prepared a report which he submitted to the Police on the basis of seeing the programme, stating that Steven Clark, the father, has been involved in the death of his 2 children. This bizarre allegation which he refused to retract, and was repeated to the GMC Professional Conduct Committee was judged on June 5th 2004 by the General Medical Council who ruled that Prof Southall acted in a manner that was “inappropriate”, “irresponsible” and “misleading” in compiling a report outlining his accusations and concerns.

Subsequently on August 7th he was found found guilty of serious professional misconduct after accusing solicitor Sally Clark's husband of murdering their children.

The General Medical Council said the doctor can continue to practise, but has said he cannot work in child protection. He was supported by testimonials from 85 people including surgeons, nurses, social workers and a judge, who praised Professor Southall's work, and who said they believed he should be bale to continue working.

David Hall, professor of community paediatrics at the University of Sheffield, said: "He is a pioneer, a man who pushed the limits and went where others would fear to tread.

"David Southall is totally committed. We need people like him who challenge received wisdom, test new ideas and suggest new approaches."

Professor Southall pioneered the use of covert video surveillance (CVS) to detect cases of so called Munchausen's syndrome.

In an 8 eight-year study, starting in1986, he found that youngsters aged between two months and 44 months were being deliberately injured in cruel and sadistic attacks by their parents or step parents while in hospital.

The most common method of abuse was suffocation, but deliberate fractures and poisoning were also uncovered by CVS. Covert filming led to a total of 33 parents or step-parents of 39 children identified as at risk by doctors, social workers and psychiatrists,being prosecuted.

At the time Stephen Clark issued a statement in which he stated "the resultant lengthy investigation by Professor David and Social Services totally exonerated Steve, and dismissed Professor Southall's allegations as being entirely unfounded."

This was issued by Sue Stapely a PR professional who had from before the first trial orchestrated the publicity for the Clark family.

Subsequently they published a letter to the Lancet 26/7/05 whose Editor Richard Horton had written in an Editorial "Meadow should not be found guilty of serious professional misconduct', who also opined that, "The crucial error was legal not medical'".

They also issued a statement to the Lancet 1/7/05

The Clark family have been happy to hound Professor Meadows in his retirement (He is now 73) but they have a remedy to the clear , unambiguous, bold, statements of Professor Southall that Mr Stephen Clark killed his two children.

They can sue him for libel.

To date ... they have chosen not too.
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Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark byJohn Batt, Ebury Press 2004 ISBN 0091900700 336 pps. Amazon Books now remaindered £3.98


GMC v Meadow: judgment in full
Neutral Citation Number: [2006] EWCA Civ 1390
Case No: CO/5763/2005

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
The Honourable Mr Justice Colli