Lawsuit Accuses Iran Of Complicity in 9/11 Attacks

There's an interesting federal lawsuit that's been filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by family members of the victims of 9/11.

It alleges that Iran had foreknowledge of the attacks, materially assisted al-Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers and was complicit in the attacks.

This is by no means new material. Even the 9/11 commission said in its report that there was "strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers." There's more than just strong evidence that Iran allowed members of al-Qaeda into Iran after we invaded their stronghold in Afghanistan, which is how so many of them got to Iraq so easily via Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.

The 9/11 commission urged further investigation at the time, but neither the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration has seen fit to follow up.

Representing eight law firms from across the United States, the attorneys and their team of investigators have turned up some convincing evidence, including the testimony of two defectors from the Islamic regime's intelligence service as well as from members of the 9/11 commission and US intelligence agents and terrorism experts

The attorneys in the case claim to have taken sworn testimony former Iranian intelligence operatives describing the direct participation of top government officials of Iran in the planning of, and preparation for, the 9/11 attacks. These witnesses also describe the roles of top Iranian officials in assisting al Qaeda leadership and operatives to escape from Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in the wake of 9/11.Iran then provided safe haven and support for these al Qaeda members inside Iran.

"There is an I-Spy aspect to all this," Dennis Pantazis, a partner at Wiggins Childs said. "But the information the defectors provided is direct and their documentation is direct."

"The big picture in a case like this is knowledge," he said. "We can't change history and we can't prosecute anyone, all we can do with a civil suit is reveal truth and knowledge."

According to the filing, Iran facilitated travel for the al-Qaeda members by directing border guards not to impede their ingress into Iran or to stamp their passports. If that's true ( and it likely is) Iran had foreknowledge of the attacks. And given that Iran has been in a state of war with America since 1979, it would hardly be out of character.

Another piece of the puzzle is our old friend, the late and unlamented Imad Mugniyeh.

Mugniyeh was one of the superstars of jihad. He was a Lebanese Shi'ite who started his career as a member of Yasser Arafat's Force 17 back when the PLO was trying to put together its own little reichlet there, and later became a founding member of Hezbollah.

He masterminded the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and the truck-bomb attacks in Beirut that took the lives of 242 U.S. Marines and 58 French troops and personally tortured to death CIA agent William Buckley, recording the proceeds on video and sending it to the CIA HQ in Langley. He also made the FBI's most wanted list for ordering the murder of US Navy diver Robert Stethem during the June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847.

Mugniyeh later joined al Qaeda as one of Osama bin-Laden's chiefs of operations while maintaining his connections with Hezbollah, the Palestinians and Iran, and was unique in that he was a trusted link between all the parties.

According to the lawsuit, Mugniyeh was the direct liaison between al-Qaeda and Iran,something that's entirely plausible given that he performed the same role in other operations like the Karina-A arms shipment the Israelis hijacked, which involved Iranian arms sent to Arafat via Hezbollah with a Palestinian crew.

There were already some tentative links to Mughniyeh by the 9/11 Commission, which cited evidence that "a senior Hezbollah operative visited Saudi Arabia to coordinate activities there" and that this senior Hezbollah operative and his associate were on the same flights as several of the future hijackers who were traveling to and from Iran between October 2000 and February 2001.

The lawsuit says it has what it describes as 'compelling evidence' in the testimony of the Iranian defectors that the senior Hezbollah operative described was Imad Mughniyeh.

Iran is not bothering to mount a defense and neither are the Iranian officials named in the suit. The plan will likely be to get a judgment and then pursue Iranian assets overseas in foreign courts that honor US judgments.

What other fall out happens from this will likely depend on how compelling a case the plaintiffs make. Establishing Iranian complicity in the 9/11 attacks will likely lead to a resurgence of the question some of us have been asking for a long time - exactly why did we go after Saddam Hussein and ignore the real threat in Iran?

As I told you a long time ago, it was about the Saudis.

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Egypt's Mubarak To Go On Trial Wednesday

Egypt's deposed ex-president Hosni Mubarak has been formally summoned to trial on Wednesday,in spite of his deteriorating physical condition.

The 83-year-old Mubarak recently suffered a heart attack and has been refusing nourishment.

Nonetheless, Mubarak will be flown by helicopter from his hospital room in Sharm el Sheikh to the heliport of the national police academy outside Cairo where the trial will be held. And the junta has set up a bed for him in a steel cage that will hold all the prisoners inside the courtroom, in case he's not able to sit upright.It's only been six months since he was ousted from power, and the rush trial means that a lot of the things he's alleged to have done won't be discussed.

Mubarak and most of the other defendants are accused of conspiring to kill the 800 or so demonstrators who died at the hands of the security forces during the uprising.Mubarak and some of the others are also being charged with participating in a kickback scheme which the Mubaraks received luxury villas in the Sinai resort of Sharm el Sheikh in exchange for allowing Egyptian tycoon Hussein Salem a supply of natural gas at below-market prices, which he then sold to Israel for a profit. Salem managed to leave in time and is currently fighting extradition in Spain.

The rush, of course is designed to have Mubarak face 'justice' before he dies of natural causes. The current junta need a show trial for the same reasons the Jacobins did during the Terror in Revolutionary France - to divert the Mob and give them a target for their anger.

Also on trial in th esame courtroom will be Mubarak's sons Alaa and Gamal. Habib el-Adly, interior minister of Egypt under Mubarak, along with six of his aides are on trial at a separate location fo rsimilar charges related to the death of the demonstrators. El-Adly has already been convicted for corruption in two other trials and he and most or all of his aides will likely hang.

The trial is going to be held in front of a huge audience which will include relatives of the alleged victims who will be allowed to confront the Mubaraks, and it will be televised. A good time is guaranteed for all.

Mubarak and his sons will likely swing, since that's what the regime needs - unless the spectacle of Mubarak, helpless and near death rouses the Egyptians to pity, in which case they will probably hang the sons and incarcerate the elder Mubarak for the rest of what remains of his life.

-Selah-

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Blago Goes Down

Former Illinois Rod Blagojevich was found guilty today in 17 out of 20 charges in his corruption retrial.

The primary charges he was found guilty on all relate to his attempt to sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat, to an attempted $50,000 shakedown of Children's Memorial Hospital in exchange for $8 million in state funding. and to bribery and extortion connected to a racing bill.

Sentencing is scheduled for August 1, and Blagojevich could end up with 20 years. He's the third Illinois governor to be jailed in the last thirty odd years, the second within the last decade.

During this second trial, I was struck by the judge's restrictions on whom Blagojevich's attorneys could subpoena, what evidence they were allowed to access and share with the jury on certain matters and the number of overruled objections and side bar rulings that went in favor of the prosecution. Specifically, it was obvious to me that there was a definite agenda to keep the focus of this trial as narrow as possible...probably so as not to embarrass certain very prominent people.

Blagojevich was obviously guilty of gross corruption, but he certainly wasn't the only player in Chicagoland. The first trial, which ended in a hung jury because of one juror who happened to be a well connected Democrat activist might very well have been a warning to Blago not to try and involve people in his personal legal drama.

The key thing to watch is (a) what sort of sentence Blagojevich gets and (b) where he's serving time.

If a deal was made between Blago and certain powers that be and he keeps his mouth shut, it'll be something like ten to twelve years, served in some white collar country club prison like the minimum security camps at Marion or Pekin, and we might see a presidential pardon at an appropriate time, similar to how Bill Clinton treated his old Whitewater business partners Susan MacDougal and Webb Hubbell.

If it wasn't, or if there was a deal and there's a feeling it wasn't adhered to, look for a maximum sentence in some place like Greenwood or Terre Haute.

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Mubarak, Sons To Be Tried In Egypt On Murder, Corruption Charges

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be going on trial in Egypt for 'murder of unarmed protesters'. If he's found guilty, he could be executed.

Mubarak and his sons, Gamal and Alaa will also face corruption charges.

The new regime acted to head off a massive protest aimed at forcing the regime to take harsher action against the Mubaraks,among other demands such as an end to the country's decades-old emergency law, the dissolution of municipal councils, and the creation of an advisory panel to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

This is a way for the new junta, headed by Mubarak's former defense minister, to throw the mob a crumb to avoid dealing with the other demands and to put some daylight between themselves and the ousted leader.

Mubarak is being charged with “with premeditation” to kill “peaceful” demonstrators, and also with “inciting some officers and members of the police to fire their weapons at the victims, shoot them and run over them with vehicles, and to kill some of them in order to terrorize the rest and force them to relinquish their demands.” Over 800 people died in the protests.

The octogenarian Mubarak is still hospitalized after a heart attack, while his sons rot in a notorious Cairo prison along with other former regime figures waiting their turn for trials.Egyptian prosecutors said that a medical team was examining Mr. Mubarak this week to see if he was fit for transfer to that prison.

The net extended to Hosni Mubarak's wife Susan, who was ordered into a 15-day detention for questioning over accusations that she obtained illegal gain from her husband's position. She made deal with the junta to receive immunity from prosecution in exchange for handing over two fat bank accounts and the deed to a villa in Cairo.

No date for the trials has been set, and it remains to be seen if Mubarak will be dragged into court in his present condition.

As I mentioned before, he and his sons were just a little late getting out of Egypt.

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