Complex International Tale of Theft, Intelligence, Oil, Political Control & Injustice

[Peter Lemkin]

Another U.S. Whistleblower Behind Bars? Investor Jailed After Exposing Corrupt Azerbaijani Oil Deal

In a Democracy Now! exclusive, we look at the case of multimillionaire American businessman and philanthropist Rick Bourke, who blew the whistle on a fraudulent scheme by international criminals to gain control of the oil riches of the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan only to end up as the only person sent to jail by federal prosecutors in the massive conspiracy. Since May, Bourke has been held in a federal prison, serving a term of one year and one day for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for alleged knowledge of the bribery that allegedly took place in 1998. Other investors in the Azerbaijan scheme included former Democratic Senate Majority leader George Mitchell and major institutions including Columbia University and AIG, but no one else was jailed in the United States. High-ranking former U.S. and British officials from the CIA and MI6 have raised serious concerns about the conviction of Bourke in part because the key witnesses during his trial were allegedly intelligence assets working for the U.S. government. They are not the only ones who question Bourke's guilt. Even the judge in his case has admitted having doubts. At the time of Bourke's sentencing, Shira Scheindlin of the Federal District Court said, "After 10 years of supervising this case, it is still not entirely clear to me whether Mr. Bourke was a victim, or a crook, or a little bit of both." We speak to Bourke's lawyer, the law professor and renowned attorney Michael Tigar, as well as former Washington Post reporter Scott Armstrong. "Why is it that they would go after the guy that blew the whistle on the thievery and bribery, Rick Bourke?" Tigar asks. "Why is it that the Czech citizen and the guy, the ex-patriot, and the German-Swiss lawyer all are walking free; the American citizen, philanthropist, and so on, is sitting in a minimum security jail? Well, investment in the Azerbaijan hydrocarbon industry is now safely in the hands of major petroleum companies. Is that a reason?"

Transcript

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Today in a Democracy Now! exclusive, we spend the hour looking at a story of yet another whistleblower imprisoned under the Obama administration, a story that could be straight out of a Hollywood thriller. The saga centers on an American businessman and philanthropist who was caught in an amazing web of international white-collar crime and mysterious suspected double agents of powerful intelligence agencies, a man who, when he blew the whistle, ended up being indicted by federal prosecutors, convicted and sent to prison for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The cast of unlikely characters includes a man nicknamed the Pirate of Prague, a former U.S. senator, an Ivy League university and the presidents of the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
AMY GOODMAN: The story centers on a multimillionaire named Frederic Bourke, known as Rick. You might recognize the name. He is best known for co-founding the luxury handbag company Dooney & Bourke. Using profits from the handbag company, he later became a major investor in medical research, including cutting-edge cancer treatments.
Today Rick Bourke is locked up at Englewood, a minimum security facility in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, after he was convicted in U.S. federal court in 2009 of conspiring to pay bribes to government leaders in Azerbaijan as part of a risky scheme to buy the state oil company in the former Soviet republic. Bourke is serving a sentence of one year and one day, after he unsuccessfully appealed his conviction. In addition, he was ordered to pay a $1 million fine and serve three years of supervised release following the prison term. Prosecutors never alleged Bourke had actually paid bribes, only that he knew of the bribes paid to the Azerbaijani officials.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Azerbaijan is a key U.S. ally in Central Asia. Located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, the former Soviet republic shares a border with Iran and is a key transit route for U.S. troops and supplies heading for Afghanistan. The country has been run by the same family since 1993, first by Heydar Aliyev and then his son Ilham. Ilham won re-election just last week after a controversial vote.
Frederic Bourke was one of many prominent investors in the deal but the only one who was jailed in the United States. Other investors included former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and major institutions including Columbia University and AIG.
Bourke's supporters say he's a whistleblower who helped expose the shadowy underworld of global finance once he realized he was being swindled. High-ranking former U.S. and British officials from the CIA and MI6 have also raised serious concerns about the conviction of Bourke, in part because the key witnesses during his trials were alleged intelligence assets working for the U.S. government.
They aren't the only ones who question Bourke's guilt. Even the judge in his case has admitted having doubts. At the time of Bourke's sentencing, Shira Scheindlin of the Federal District Court said, quote, "After 10 years of supervising this case, it is still not entirely clear to me whether Mr. Bourke was a victim, or a crook, or a little [bit] of both."
AMY GOODMAN: While Bourke remains in jail, the masterminds and key players behind the bribery schemethe men he blew the whistle onremain free. Viktor Kozeny, who is known as the Pirate of Prague, lives in a gated community in the Bahamas. Attorney Hans Bodmer serves on the board of a Swiss bank. And a third man, a U.S. citizen named Tom Farrell, lives in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he runs a bar. Bodmer and Farrell pleaded guilty and signed agreements to provide testimony in related cases.
We recently spoke to Michael Tigar, the renowned attorney, law professor and author, who is representing Rick Bourke. We also spoke to Scott Armstrong, a journalist formerly with The Washington Post who has closely followed the case. He is founder and former executive director of the National Security Archives and former chairperson of the Government Accountability Project. I began by asking attorney Michael Tigar to lay out the story.

MICHAEL TIGAR: In 1998, in the spring, Rick Bourke investedhe and his family$8 million in a plan formed by Viktor Kozeny, a Czech entrepreneur, for the privatization of the hydrocarbon industry of Azerbaijan. Kozeny was a crook. He stole every bit of Rick Bourke's money and all of the other investors' money. He bribed Azeri officials. He lives today happily unextradited in the Bahamas. The scheme was put together by a Swiss lawyer named Hans Bodmer, who was given a no-jail plea by the United States government and who sits happily in Zurich today laundering money for Russian oligarchs, and by a fellow named Tom Farrell, who was the bagman, who operatesan American citizenoperates happilythe Russians apparently like hima bar in Saint Petersburg.

When Rick Bourke found out about the stealing in 1998, he went to the New York District Attorney's Office, and he appeared before a grand jury in the state of New York. They indicted Kozeny for theft. Bourke then went to the federal government. They said, "Oh, no, Kozeny's not a thief. He might be guilty of some other offenses." They indicted Kozeny for offenses for which, as a matter of fact, he couldn't be extradited. They could have extradited him on the theft charge. And instead, they indicted Bourke on the testimony of Bodmer and Farrell that Bourke had known about the bribery of Azeri officials, testimony that, perhaps in the course of this trial, we can deconstruct, because it was ill-motivated.

Today, Rick Bourke is in jail. I regard him as a whistleblower. And we were unsuccessful, even after a United States attorney stood in the United States Court of Appeals in Lower Manhattan and told the court that the United States Attorney's Office in this judicial district is perfectly happy to put on false testimony knowing that it's false, that it happens all the time, but that Rick Bourke isn't entitled to any relief on that basis.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I'd like to bring Scott Armstrong in, a former Washington Post reporter, founder of the National Security Archive and, for a time, a chairman of the board of the Government Accountability Project. Scott, how did you get involved in this case? And what is the broader issue involved here of the case of Rick Bourke?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Well, after Bourke had been indicted, he was seeking to establish the fact that he was a whistleblower and at one point went to the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit organization which helps and protects the ability of whistleblowers to speak out. They turned to me and asked if I'd be interested in taking on this case, taking a look at what happened and seeing if Bourke was a whistleblower. I should point out that I'm speaking today for myself and not on behalf of the Government Accountability Project, but that was my route in. I reluctantly accepted it because it seemed like an opportunity to look at a case of major international corruption, a case where there was massive fraud by Kozeny, but also where there were a lot of other things going on. This fellow Hans Bodmer, who was the key witness against Bourke, was also the chief operating officer for not only Kozeny, but for a whole variety of international crooks, for the Russian oligarchy and many Russian officialsan international criminal of the first order. And you don't get an opportunity to look into these matters unless you have some access to information which is normally not released by the government or sealed. And what Bourke did was he said he would give us access, total access, without anyany controls or restraints, to look at all the records that he had, all the information he had. We could ask anybody. He waived his attorney-client privilege and so forth. So I took on the project and spent nearly two years, a year and a half, looking at theat what actually happened.

What shocked me, and I think is what is important here, is that the government very deliberatelythe United States government very deliberately ignored what happened. Their interest was not in what happened, in finding out whatwhere this actually led, but in going after a relatively narrow cast of characters. They were in the process ofthey essentially interrupted a very effective investigation conducted by the New York District Attorney's Office, which had aremarkably enough, by coincidence, a very competent attorney named Miriam Klipper, who went to the Czech Republic, where Kozeny originally was, and began investigating and was moving along, along with Czech investigators, very rapidly, and ultimately indicted Kozeny.

In the meantime, the federal government was approached by Kozeny, who himself wasbecause of Bourke's whistleblowing, was being sued by other investors in London and was losing the case badly. So, Kozeny took a remarkablea remarkable strategy and came to the United States government through attorneys just at the change in the administrations, just as the Clinton administration was leaving and the Bush administration was arriving. And he essentially said, "I'm outside your jurisdiction. You're never going to get me. But I am in fact involved in an international crime. But it's my investors who really led me to do it." And he then said, "You can get the investors. You can't get me. And I'll cooperate with you," and began telling a story. And the principle there was that if he could establish the United States government interest in that fact, that they were all crooks, then in the London courts, where Kozeny stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, the courts couldn't rule in the favor of the investors, because the investors would be perceived to have unclean hands and could notcould not recover their assets as a result. So, it was a negotiating strategy, effectively, but it worked.

And once the government began its investigationthe United States government began its investigation, it threw aside, it didn't cooperate with the New York statethe New York District Attorney's Office in their investigation, which was quite far advanced and quite complete, and it included already an indictment, an indictment for an extraditable offense. They threw all that aside and then began to bungle around and ended up focusing on the one person who was notthey couldn't explain his behavior, because he was a whistleblower. And he hadas soon as he had learned of Kozeny's corruption, he began blowing the whistle. Of course, Bourke had no idea that this actually went far beyond Azerbaijan, far beyond the Czech Republic, and involved a series of Russian oligarchs, Russian banks, Russian officials and the third-largest oil company in Russia, which was bought and sold and profited Kozeny in the middle of this. So, this elaborate set of frauds that Kozeny was involved in were in essence covered up by the United States government, who chose instead to bring the full weight of their investigative enthusiasm against the whistleblower. And that justto me, that shocks the conscience.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Scott Armstrong, former Washington Post reporter, founder and former executive director of the National Security Archives and former chair of the Government Accountability Project. We also heard from renowned attorney, law professor and author, Michael Tigar, who's representing Frederic Bourke, who was convicted of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for alleged knowledge of bribery in pursuit of the privatization of the state oil company in Azerbaijan.
After the break, we'll continue our conversation with Armstrong and Tigar about this complex case of international fraud, Caspian oil, competing foreign intelligence services, and whyamong the cast of characters that includes Viktor Kozeny, the Pirate of Prague; his bagman, Thomas Farrell, [an American running a bar in Saint Petersburg, Russia]; alleged money-laundering Swiss attorney, Hans Bodmerthe only one to go to prison in the United States was the whistleblower, Rick Bourke. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we return now to our in-depth look in this Democracy Now! exclusive at the strange case of Frederic Bourke, who blew the whistle on a foreign bribery scam in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan that robbed many investors in the U.S. and abroad of hundreds of millions of dollars, but he ended up being the only one going to prison in the United States. We recently sat down with two of the most knowledgeable people on the case, journalist Scott Armstrong and attorney Michael Tigar, who is representing Rick Bourke. I asked Scott Armstrong to talk about the geopolitical importance of Azerbaijan to the United States.

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The problem that Bourke faced as a whistleblower was that he was blowing the whistle against somebody who was beyondessentially, enjoyed impunity. That is to say, he was blowing the whistle about the government of Azerbaijan, about the president, Heydar Aliyev, and his son, Ilham Aliyev, who was running the state oil company at the time. And Azerbaijan was absolutely critical to U.S. interests. First of all, it was the source of these enormous oil riches in the Caspian Sea. Secondly, the only route out of the Caspian Sea for not only Azerbaijani oil, but also for the oil of other former Soviet states in that region, is through Azerbaijan or Iran. And clearly, we weren't going to encourage, given our relations with Iran even back at that point, going in that direction. In addition to that, after 9/11, the government of Azerbaijan, headed by Heydar Aliyev, was enthusiastic about the U.S. participation in a war against terror and was one of the few Islamic countries to endorse it. So it was a critical ally in that respect. And lastly, it wasbecause it's located in the Caspian Sea, which is essentially the upper backdoor, if you will, to Iran, as well as looking across Russia, it became an incredibly important location for U.S. intelligence facilities over the horizon radars. When I was there in Baku later in 2007, the largest contingent of U.S. marines anywhere in the world stationed permanently was in Azerbaijan, and no one really knew it at the time. So, this was a relationship that the United States government felt it could not lose.

So, Bourke, when he was pushing the United States government and others to do something about it, was facing an enormous uphill battle. Plus, the other investors were not pleased. They were interested to learn that Kozeny had stolen their money, but they were then trying to get it back and negotiate it, and they didn't want Kozeny indicted, and they didn't want the complications of other investigations. But Bourke forged ahead and gave his testimony directly to the New York state's attorney and was fully cooperative, and he met with the federal government repeatedly and gave them all the information that he had, waived his attorney-client privilege, did things that most citizens would never be advised to do, but did it in a forthright manner. Now, I'm not defending his reasons for getting involved with the investment in the first place. That was clearly to make some money. But he did it, and when he realized it was athat it was a corrupt deal, he came forward and continued to come forward and never relented.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about Rick Bourke going to the president of Azerbaijan to exposethis is what he did firstwhat he had learned. It might astound many people to know this, but, Scott Armstrong, if you could talk about what he did?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: When Bourke found out that there was something wrong, thathe read a World Bank report, and he realized, from the statistics that the Azeri government had reported there, that there hadKozeny had to be involved in a fraud. He started going to other investors and got a lawyer for Omega to work with him, and they went around doing some final due diligence after thebeginning to realize that their investment had been embezzled and lost. And in the process of it, the allegation was that Kozeny had been working with the son of the president of Azerbaijan. The son's name was Ilham Aliyev, and iswho is now the current president. The then-president, Ilham's father, Heydar Aliyev, was approached through the good offices of George Mitchell to get an appointment, and they got in to see him, and they went in and said, "You realize there's gambling going on in your casino?" I mean, it was a scene out of Casablanca. And he feigned, "Oh, I'm shocked, shocked that anybody would suggest this. I'm shocked that Kozeny, whoeverybody knows Kozeny's a crook. I wouldn't be involved with Kozeny. I woudn't let anybody anywhere near Kozeny." Well, of course, by that point, Kozeny and hisand Heydar Aliyev's son, Ilham, were effectively partners in all this. So, it was, I mean, a virtually comical scene that partially testifies to Bourke's naiveté in thinking that just by blowing the whistle that the walls would come tumbling down.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the reasons, Scott Armstrong, you were so interested in this, because it wasI mean, it's like reading a John le Carré novel, but it's a sad story because one person ends up in jail here. But to understand what happened in Azerbaijan and all of the interests thereyou know, the largest Marine base in the Caspian Sea, so the U.S. has a tremendous interest there. The World Bank gets implicated. Universities get implicated. Large corporations get implicated. But could you talk about the originalthe reason Kozeny had this money to go to Azerbaijan, starting in the Czech Republic, to understand this whole privatization scheme across Eastern Europe?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: One of the policies of the United States government after the fall of the Soviet Union was to suggest a series of privatization measures so that in a socialized society that hadunder a communist rule, where the state owned most of the major assets, they would essentially take the value of the entire set of assets, the public part of the state, divide it by the number of people, and issue what amounted to vouchers or shares in that. Then those vouchers could be traded, combined in different ways, and citizens would therefore participate in the privatization, in the turn of theirfrom a closed communist society to a market society. They'd be able to participate in that process and get back some of the value that was owned by the state. It's never really worked that way. It's never really worked well. It's been corrupted repeatedly.

One of the worst cases was Czechoslovakia, where Kozeny was the principal exploiter. This was what I think interested the New York state's attorney when Bourke came forward. They began to see how serious a set of international crimes this implied, that this was a kind of systemic theft that could take place anywhere, and it was a goodit was a poster child for that proposition that they could go after. Even today, the Czech Republic is still investigating. Lots of new information has come out. Hopefully the story is not over. But the United States government has never cooperated with the Czech investigation. They've instead frustrated it. They refused to provide documents. They refused to provide materials that were available. It's only the New York state's attorney that's cooperated.

So, in thewhen we talk about public epistemology and how we get to know things, this is a very frustrating story. A whistleblower comes forward. It's very productive, leads tothe string begins to get pulled, and it leads to a whole international series of transactions going from Czechoslovakia, Azerbaijan, going into the heart of Russia, into the largest of institutions. And it all gets brought to ground by the lack of interest for the United States government, for reasons that are opaque. And the only person who sacrifices in this is the whistleblower.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about who some of those investors were. I mean, Rick Bourke alone did not invest in privatizing the Azerbaijan oil supply. In fact, you have Columbia University. You have AIG. You have Omega Fund. Who else, Michael Tigar? Talk about who this group of investors were that lost a fortune.

MICHAEL TIGAR: Well, the interesting thing that thethat list, if I had to recall it from memory, since I wasn'tI didn't know that this would be a multiple-choice exam today, would be long. But the interesting thing about Columbia University isand this is one of the thingsJudge Scheindlin is a good judge, yes.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: This is the Columbia University investment, though, fund.

MICHAEL TIGAR: Columbia University invested in the Kozeny's project.

AMY GOODMAN: Ten million dollars.

MICHAEL TIGAR: Ten million. They would not have done so if this deal stunk. That is to say, they did their due diligence. They didn't think there was any bribery. They didn't think there was anything wrong. And yet, the testimony of those folks was excluded at trial, even though it would have shown thatyou know, how could you know? Once you demonstrated that Bodmer's testimony was suspect, how could Rick have been in a position to have the culpable knowledge?

AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about another investor, George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader.

MICHAEL TIGAR: Yes. Bourke actually talked to Mitchell about this investment. Mitchell had met with Kozeny. And again, he invested in that spring of 1998 timeand eyes wide open. Everybody knows who Senator George Mitchell is. Senator George Mitchell is not somebody who is looking to be corrupt, who's looking to be involved in corruption. He was looking to get an investment that he thought was reasonable under the circumstances. And throughout this process, he hashe has been helpful. That is, he understands that the evidence that Rick Bourke was culpably knowledgeable about bribery simply doesn't wash.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, I want to ask a question about what happened to these other investors and why they weren't making as much a deal of their millions of dollars in losses as Rick Bourke was. Now, he hadn't invested as much as most of them had, and yet why this hasn't been made public by some of them. Now, Columbia loses $10 million. Maybe they don't want to make it public. This isright?money for the endowment. But this leaves Rick Bourke out there alone.

MICHAEL TIGAR: Yes, it does. I am disappointed in the other investors. Let me start with that. But, you know, I've been in the law practice a long time. And if you are the victim of a colossal fraud that involves not just your lunch money, but the money of other people who have reposed confidence in you and who are putting their money with you, you know, theif you can start a lawsuit, preferably some distant place where they speak some other version of the English language, called London, and in an arbitral tribunal or in a court or whatever, and get some of the money back, that's really all you want, because he who chases justice may catch it.

AMY GOODMAN: So you wantmight want Rick Bourke to be shut up, because

MICHAEL TIGAR: Oh, yeah, and indeed, when he went to these other investors, they were perfectly happy to say, "Well, maybe we could file a little lawsuit here, a little lawsuit there," and so on. But ifone of these days you will meet Rick Bourke and realize that that's not his style. He stood up, and he went to the prosecutors. That's just not the style of people in the investment community.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking about people like Leon Cooperman, very influential hedge fund manager

MICHAEL TIGAR: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: former Goldman Sachs executive, who runs Omega Capital Partners, which waswhich was one of the organizations that invested.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Oh, the biggest investor.

MICHAEL TIGAR: Yes, you know, well, when is the last time that a major investment firm started running around the streets claiming that they'd been defrauded and wanted to make a big deal out of it, as opposed to going someplace to see if they could get some of the money back? I don't know. I wasn't there.

AMY GOODMAN: Let melet me put that question to Scott Armstrong. Scott Armstrong, what about Leon Cooperman, head of Omega, major investor?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Well, in the beginning, when Bourke began blowing the whistle, Cooperman washis lawyers told Bourke that he could not use some of the information, because when Bourke had gathered it, he'd gathered it with some help from one of the Omega lawyers, one of the hedge fund lawyers. But also, he wasBourke was facing AIG, one of the other major investors, which wantedboth Cooperman and the principals in AIG wanted to settle this as quietly as they could. And when they couldn't do that, they wanted to go to the London courts and see if they could pursue it there. But they did not want to do this in the United States. They did not want this to become a subject of a criminal investigation by the New York district attorney or by the federal government. They wanted to keep it on the quiet.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Interestingly, the judge in this case was Judge Shira Scheindlin, who's also had the recent historic decision in the racial profiling case. And in her sentencing of Rick Bourke, she said, "After [SUP]10[/SUP] years of supervising this case, it is still not entirely clear to me whether Mr. Bourke was a victim, or a crook, or a little bit of both." And she actually sentenced him to a lighter sentence than the prosecutors were calling for. Could you talk about the main reasons why you believe that the government's case was defective and why Rick Bourke should not have been convicted?

MICHAEL TIGAR: Well, the principal testimony that suggested that Bourke knew about the bribery was that of Hans Bodmer, this German-Swiss lawyer from Zurich. And he said that on February the 6th, 1998, at the Hyatt Hotel in Baku, he had received authorization from Kozeny to tell Bourke; that Bourke, who was then accompanied by a man named Evans, and Bodmer took a walk; that Bodmer explained the whole thing; and that they turned right and left, and the weather was this or that. The prosecutors had madelaid great stress on this meeting having happened in February, because Bourke didn't invest 'til March. Turned out that flight records showed indisputably that Bourke wasn't in Baku in February.

AMY GOODMAN: In Azerbaijan.

MICHAEL TIGAR: In Azerbaijan, which is theBaku is the capital city. Not only was he not there

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: On thaton that day, right?

MICHAEL TIGAR: On that day.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Right.

MICHAEL TIGAR: Nor at any other time when Kozeny, Evans and Bourke could have been together in that way. Not only that, but if you look at the history of Bodmer's proffers with the government, their notes of the meetings, he started out telling a different story. Not until he came to the February story did they offer him his plea bargain, which resulted in him getting no jail time.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of what he said, meeting with Bourke at that time in Baku, was that he says that he explained to him they were bribing foreign officials?

MICHAEL TIGAR: That's right. That's the "This is what we are doing." Farrell also testified that he had said something to Bourke. Farrell's background and history, much of that information remains under seal. And you, as journalists, have more access to it and can talk about it more freely than I can. But the fact is that both Bodmer and Farrell got bargains that resulted in them serving no time in United States prisons, Farrell permitted to go back to Russia, and that

AMY GOODMAN: Farrell wasis an American

MICHAEL TIGAR: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: who runs a bar in Russia, in Saint Petersburg.

MICHAEL TIGAR: That's right. Tom Farrell isit was Kozeny's money man. He was the bagman. That's what he said. And

AMY GOODMAN: Does he work for U.S. intelligence?

MICHAEL TIGAR: I believe that he works forI believe that Farrell has connections to intelligence communities. And I'm being deliberately guarded about this, because there's a whole sealed record that I, as a member of the bar and as a lawyer, am not permitted to talk about, and that Judge Scheindlin eventually held that the defense was not entitled to cross-examine about.

AMY GOODMAN: Why would it matter?

MICHAEL TIGAR: We livewhy would it matter? Because the question here is, why is it that the United States government, having seen that the District Attorney's Office has caught Kozeny, a thiefwhy is it that they would go after the guy that blew the whistle on the thievery and bribery, Rick Bourke? Why is it that the Czech citizen and the guy, the ex-patriot, and the German-Swiss lawyer all are walking free; the American citizen, philanthropist, and so on, is sitting in a minimum security jail? Well, investment in the Azerbaijan hydrocarbon industry is now safely in the hands of major petroleum companies. Is thatis that a reason? Or is it that this money launderer in Zurich and Farrell, sitting happily with his ex-pat haven bar in Saint Petersburg, are people that the government chose instead to protect?

AMY GOODMAN: That was Michael Tigar, attorney representing Frederic Bourke, the whistleblower who went to the U.S. Department of Justice to expose an international criminal enterprise involving massive bribes paid to officials of the government of Azerbaijan aimed at gaining control of the state-owned oil company. Instead of pursuing the alleged criminals, federal prosecutors indicted Bourke. He is currently serving a sentence of a year and a day in federal prison in Colorado. Back to our conversation in a minute.
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We return now to the case of Frederic Bourke. We recently sat down with Bourke's attorney Michael Tigar and Scott Armstrong, an investigative journalist with decades of experience delving into complex cases of corruption, both domestically and internationally. I asked Scott Armstrong about what message the government's prosecution of Bourke sends to other would-be whistleblowers.

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Well, let's start from the standpoint that a whistleblowerwhistleblowers have different motivations. And it's not the whistleblower or the whistleblower's breath that we should be concerned about; it's the whistle. There are really only two whistles in the United States. One is the government. The government provides an opportunity for a whistleblower to go in, and the government should then react accordingly: It should try and investigate and right wrongs, try and get to the bottom of what happened. And in order to do that, it has to give a fair opportunity, even if it wants to contest some of what the whistleblower says, for them to respond.

In this case, in the case of a trial, theroughly speaking, before the trialbefore they even began the process of the prosecution, when they first indicted him, they turned over a ton of materialsome of it very relevant, some of it not so relevantbut it was a lot of material to go through. I know. I went through it. I did the whistleblower thing from the other point of a whistle, which is the way the press would do it. What is this story really about? Is itwhat's really true here? And so, we began to realize there was missing material. And I, you know, insisted that he get more material. His lawyers should go and get more material. They were very reluctant to do it. Finally, and these are notthis is not the final crew that did the trial, but the predecessor sets of attorneys who had, themselves, deep conflicts. There were conflicts of interest. They were, themselves, corrupted. But in the end, the government had to turn over three more tons of material. I mean, we're talking about an enormous quantity of material. And theybut they did it so late that no one had an opportunity to go through it. I mean, even my group was disbanded by the time the last part of it came through.

So, that's not the way the whistle ought to be treating a whistleblower. And the lesson here is that if you're politically out of tune with the government, if you're suggesting something that goes in the wrong direction from the standpoint of the federal government, that offends their intelligence objectives, offends their support for economic interests in oil and oil pipelines, offends their ability to be able to strike back at Iranand maybe these are important interests, but if the whistleblower is facing those and nothing happens, that's one thing. But if what happens is that whistleblower gets prosecuted, in essence, essentially to dilute him, to shut him up, to keep him from being effective in his whistleblowing, that seems to me to be where the criminality in this occurs. And that's in the hands of the federal government.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I'd like to get deeper into this whole issue that you mentioned briefly earlier on about the intelligence connections to this case and the sealed portion of the proceedings on this case, still sealed to this day. It's our understanding, because we've done our own reporting on this in Democracy Now!, that key figures in the intelligence communityor, former key figures in the intelligence community of both the United States and England, Sir Richard Dearlove of MI6 and Jamesthe former head of MI6, theJim Pavitt, former deputy director of the CIA

AMY GOODMAN: Head of covert operations.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Head of covert operationswent to the court and attempted to raise what they knew about the connections of Hans Bodmer and Thomas Farrell to intelligence agencies and their role as assets. And they were denied the chance to testify, and the whole record was sealed. Now, I'd like to ask Scott Armstrong, in your own independent investigation, what you learned about the role ofespecially of Hans Bodmer, but also of Tom Farrell, in being an asset for intelligence agencies beyond just this case of Rick Bourke?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Well, Hans Bodmer, on whom I concentrated a great deal of my effort, was the centerpiece for a variety of schemes that surrounded the glove. I mean, if there's aif Kozeny was Al Caponeand he really wasn't, he was a much more minor figureBodmer was the Meyer Lansky. He was the chief operating officer, essentially, of this international crime series of organizations, who could take off-the-shelf companies in the British Virgin Islands or in Switzerland or Liechtenstein, and usually combinations of all of them, create special purpose entities, create histories for them, and begin to move money, launder money, to pay off officials, to do things that are essentially the complicated issues that make so opaque much of international finance and much of international corruption.

In doing so, he learns a great deal about what's going on inside Russia. He knows most of the ministers of the Russian government, under the Putin government. He gets to know the major oligarchs of that system, the people who end up owning the major oil companies and entities of the world. He gets to know the Russian banks. He gets to know other foreign people who are serving them, other foreign officials who are corrupted by this process. And he has all this information in his Rolodex, effectively. He has it in his memory.

He gets arrested on other charges in Korea in 2003 and held for a period of time. And in order to get out of it, he begins to cooperate with the United States government. But he cooperates in a way that's totally consistent with covering up his own activities. And he acts as if he's just the mouthpiece or functionary for this, when in fact he's so much more. Well, part of the cooperation agreement that he gets with the government is premised on the notion that he'll cooperate with American intelligence, because he knows so much. And I'm not faulting American intelligence for wanting to have his information or his knowledge. It's certainly valuable. He becomes kind of the one-man NSA of inside Russian finance, and, as such, he's incredibly valuable to them. So, they say, "We'll give you a free pass, but you have to cooperate with our prosecutors, who are prosecuting the Kozeny case," which, by that point, they had blown it on Kozeny, so they were really only going after the whistleblower and a few other minor figures who dropped away. So they're really going after Rick Bourke. So, essentially, they prepare him and re-prepare him in ways that Michael Tigar has well documented in these briefs in the court of appeals.

But what happens is, Bodmer is essentially a robot of the United States government prosecutors. They say, "Here's what you have to testify to," and he testifies to it. Now, it turns out it was totally false and couldn't have possibly been right, because of other records that came out ofthat they should have discovered along the way. They then, as has been suggested, say, "Well, that's not our problem. It must have happened at another time, but it's still true." Well, it shocks the conscience that an independent branch of government, the federal judiciary, in its variousboth at the trial stage, court of appeals stage, at all the forums that were sought, because Bourke was a wealthy man and sought relief at all these different stages, but none of them would listen to it. None of them would say, "What really happened here? Let's find out what really went on. Let's give him an opportunitylet's give the defendant an opportunity to cross-examine, fully cross-examine, the witnesses against him." And that essentially never happened, as a result. So we have thisit's another form of secret law. It's another form of the hubris that secret law brings, where the government can just run over somebody.

I'm not defending Bourke's motives in investing in this kind of an enterprise. He was trying to make money. But when he discovered it was corrupt, he did, in fact, come forward and continued to say it was corrupt, which upset many applecarts. And for it, he was punished.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Michael Tigar, I'd like to ask youI know you may be severely limited in what you can say about it, but it's our understanding, and we've talked to officials in British intelligence who are knowledgeable about this, that the other main witness against Bourke, Tom Farrell, was actually captured in a secret videotape in Russia trying to recruit a British diplomat to work for Russian intelligence, and that diplomat was subsequently removed from their post, and that this was some of the information that Sir Richard Dearlove of MI6 was willing to testify to in court, but that was not allowed in the court because it would raise the question: Why would the United States government be putting someone on the stand against Rick Bourke, who was involved in recruiting spies for Russian intelligence?

MICHAEL TIGAR: First, there are sealing orders, and I, as a lawyer, am subject to the sealing orders, as is everybody else, and I'm not going to violate them. Yes, there was a dispute in court about the extent of Farrell's cross-examination. We briefed it in the court of appeals, and that part of the record is also sealed. But I will say this: You know, John Milton said, "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, who never sallies out to see her adversary," but I challenge the United States government to unseal that record, to go into court tomorrow and unseal it, and then to come on this programor any program, any forum they wantand let's debate the question as to whether Tom Farrell is the sort of a person on whom you ought to ask your federal jury to rely when a question of human liberty is at stake. That far, I can go.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Armstrong, that question about intelligence?

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: In my experience, senior intelligence officials, particularly two of them from two separate governments, have never come forward in a case like this, a criminal case, or for that matter any other case, and offered their assistance to a judge and then had it rejected. Their insight would beit's an arcane field. Their information would be authoritative and, I think, persuasive. And to have it rejected wholesale is shocking, and I know of no other instance like it, because there is no other instance where I know that two such people have come forward.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Michael Tigar, I'd like to ask you, one, where is Rick Bourke now? And, two, why should the listeners or ordinary Americans care that a wealthy businessman here in the United States knowingly invested in a scheme to make money overseas and then ended up becoming a victim?

MICHAEL TIGAR: Rick Bourke is today in the minimal security federal correctional institution in Englewood, Colorado. He's been in there since the 10th of May, and his sentence is a year and a day. However, there's some option that he might get out on home confinement or halfway house. That's what happens in these minimum security institutions. It's not a picnic, by any means.

And then the question is: Why should people care? There'syou know, I never met Edward Snowden, so I don't really know if he's a worthy individual that I would want to pattern my life after. I've met Daniel Ellsberg a few times. You know, whistleblowers, as Scott Armstrong pointed out in his letter to Judge Scheindlin, come in all shapes and sizes and political configurations. And what I think isbut this characteristic is not unusual for Rick Bourke. He has invested millions of dollars in medical research, on such things as cures for cancer. His philanthropic activities are famous in the United States and outside the United States. Yes, he has been successful in business, but he is somebody whose standards, whose values, whose beliefs are indeed, I think, worthy of emulation. But regardless of that, and whether he is or not, there are thousands we know and millions who would willingly pick up arms and put on a weapon pack and go. There are only a few thousand, I think, many fewer, who would willingly combat an entrenched injustice. That's what William James said when he dedicated a monument in Boston more than a hundred years ago. It is to the few who are willing to confront entrenched injustices, regardless of what else we may think about them as people or as friends or whatever, to whom we owe a very great deal indeed.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Michael Tigar, attorney representing Rick Bourke, who was indicted and jailed after blowing the whistle on a corrupt deal to gain control of Azerbaijan's state-owned oil company. Rick Bourke is currently serving a sentence of one year and a day in federal prison of Colorado. We've also been talking to investigative journalist Scott Armstrong.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has defended its handling of the case. In a statement to Democracy Now!, spokeswoman Julie Bolcer said, quote, "After three years of Mr. Bourke's trying to overturn a jury's verdict of guilty, his two unsuccessful appeals to the Court of Appeals, and a denial of review by the United States Supreme Court, there is not much left to say, other than that Mr. Bourke has had every opportunity in numerous forums to make every argument he chose to make, and every challenge to his conviction has been rejected."
AMY GOODMAN: We reached out to attorneys for both Hans Bodmer and Tom Farrell. Tom Farrell's attorney, Stephen A. Best, said, quote, "The notion that Mr. Farrell is somehow associated with any intelligence efforts for any country is patently false. The United States federal courts examined this exact issue and found it to be without merit. Indeed, I have concerns for the citizens of Britain that a former intelligence official would believe such rubbish. Anyone who spends 30 minutes with Mr. Farrell at his bar would laugh at this ridiculous assertion," he said. Lawyers for Hans Bodmer did not respond to our request for comment.

[Magda Hassan]

Democracy Now Tags Indicted Multi-Millionaire Crook as a Whistleblower and Goes after Russia!On October 15, 2013, Democracy Now! dedicated an entire hour to a segment titled Another U.S. Whistleblower Behind Bars? Investor Jailed After Exposing Corrupt Azerbaijani Oil Deal. The exclusive show presented the case of multimillionaire American businessman Rick Bourke, who supposedly blew the whistle on a fraudulent scheme by international criminals to gain control of the oil riches of Azerbaijan. Since May 2013 Rick Bourke has been held in a federal prison for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for alleged knowledge of the bribery that allegedly took place in 1998. Other investors in the corrupt Azerbaijan scheme included former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and major institutions, including Columbia University and AIG. However, so far, no one has been jailed other than Bourke.The case as narrated by Democracy Now and a few other US mainstream outlets reads like one of John le Carré's famous spy and conspiracy thrillers turned into a Hollywood thriller:

The involvement of high-ranking former U.S. and British officials from the CIA and MI6 in Bourke's court caseHigh-profile politicians such as Senator George Mitchell and infamous mega corporations like AIGKey witnesses during the trial who were allegedly valued intelligence assets working for the U.S. government.The nastily competing powers- USA and Russia, over Azerbaijan hydrocarbon; battles over oil and pipelineShady characters such as Viktor Kozeny, known as the Pirate of Prague, who lives in the Bahamas, and a U.S. citizen named Tom Farrell, who lives in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he runs a bar and acts like a double agent

I can go on and list feature after feature of the case that entails numerous spy-novel characters, turns and twists, yet in the end leave the reader scratching his head confusedly due to not being able to make sense of this case and what it is really about. But I will not. If you are one of those confused readers don't be hard on yourself, the story is designed to confuse and not make any sense. You are not alone. If you have the time and inclination (which I hope you do) read the transcript of this case, as presented by Democracy Now, and do so a couple of times. Make sure you highlight the points emphasized repeatedly during the show. And please check out the participants in the show, including the hosts and the outlet. Once you do that, join me to compare notes. Are you ready?My Connection to Azerbaijan & My State Secrets Privilege CaseFirst, let me begin by explaining why I found this case and its presentation enormously important and noteworthy. Those of you familiar with my case know that my job and infamous State Secrets Privilege case with the FBI involved operations and files that dealt with Turkey, Azerbaijan, and several other nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus between 1996 and 2001. I was the only FBI linguist qualified to translate documents (Audio and Written) pertaining to Turkic languages such as Turkish and Azeri. These particular operations and files were the main reason for the repeated gag orders, retroactive classification and the invocation of State Secrets Privilege in my case. Thus, I am one of very few people who are intimately aware of and knowledgeable about what was going on in Azerbaijan in the years 1996 till 2001.I know for sure who the operators were behind the scenes, not only in the United States but also in Turkey and Azerbaijan, engaged in bribery, corruption, sabotage, blackmail and so much more. Whether through the Azerbaijani or Turkish diplomatic communities the FBI had amassed thousands of pages of transcripts and reports pertaining to these activities.You may assume that due to the sources targeted the individual operatives would be all foreigners-Turkish, Azerbaijani, etc. You would be wrong. Let me give you a few examples:

US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce: During those target years the organization was under operatives such as Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, James Baker, Richard Armitage, Brent Scowcroft, and Former Speaker of the House Robert Livingston. Please check the leadership and operators of this institution here. Once you do that, please check my now eight year old State Secrets Privilege Gallery here.The American Turkish Council (ATC): Again, you are looking at operatives from the same circle: Brent Scowcroft, Richard Armitage, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Robert Livingston, Tom DeLay, Stephen Solarz, and more. To read more click here

I am half Azerbaijani-from my father's side. I was the only FBI linguist with the needed clearance and linguistic qualifications to review these files and help FBI agents reopen some of the investigations that were shut down by the White House through the State Department.The Story SpunBased on what I know first-hand about the operations taking place in Azerbaijan between 1996 and 2001, and based on numerous official documents and reports (Including investigative reports by Turkish authorities), and many-dozens of articles published in the last fifteen years, I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that the operations targeting Former President Heydar Aliyev and his son Ilham Aliyev, including the 1995 assassination attempt, hooking the son via solely Turkish-Owned Casinos in Azerbaijan, blackmailing and bribing both Aliyevs, narcotics and money laundering and much more, were all planned and executed by the CIA and the State Department here in the United States via their proxy in the region, the Republic of Turkey.I am going to explain the above paragraph and provide you with links to solid documents and articles, but first, I want you to examine the story as it was spun and twisted by Democracy Now and its guests.We must start with the major emphasis in the story as is done by every capable and experienced analyst to find hooks and the target objective. I have already done this by going through the confusing and highly convoluted report several times while looking for the common repeated theme and conclusion as presented by the hosts and their guests. Here is what I found, in their own words, from the transcript [All Emphasis Mine]:

Scott Armstrong: This fellow Hans Bodmer, who was the key witness against Bourke, was also the chief operating officer for not only Kozeny, but for a whole variety of international crooks, for theRussian oligarchy and many Russian officialsan international criminal of the first order. And you don't get an opportunity to look into these matters unless you have some access to information which is normally not released by the government or sealed.…Scott Armstrong: Of course, Bourke had no idea that this actually went far beyond Azerbaijan, far beyond the Czech Republic, andinvolved a series of Russian oligarchs, Russian banks, Russian officials and the third-largest oil company in Russia, which was bought and sold and profited Kozeny in the middle of this.…Scott Armstrong: A whistleblower comes forward. It's very productive, leads tothe string begins to get pulled, and it leads to a whole international series of transactions going from Czechoslovakia, Azerbaijan, going into the heart of Russia, into the largest of institutions. And it all gets brought to ground by the lack of interest for the United States government, for reasons that are opaque. And the only person who sacrifices in this is the whistleblower.…Scott Armstrong: In doing so, he learns a great deal about what's going on inside Russia. He knows most of the ministers of the Russian government, under the Putin government. He gets to knowthe major oligarchs of that system, the people who end up owning the major oil companies and entities of the world. He gets to know the Russian banks. He gets to know other foreign people who are serving them, other foreign officials who are corrupted by this process. And he has all this information in his Rolodex, effectively. He has it in his memory.…JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Michael Tigar, I'd like to ask youI know you may be severely limited in what you can say about it, but it's our understanding, and we've talked to officials in British intelligence who are knowledgeable about this, that the other main witness against Bourke, Tom Farrell, was actually captured in a secret videotape inRussia trying to recruit a British diplomat to work for Russian intelligence, and that diplomat was subsequently removed from their post, and that this was some of the information that Sir Richard Dearlove of MI6 was willing to testify to in court, but that was not allowed in the court because it would raise the question: Why would the United States government be putting someone on the stand against Rick Bourke, who was involved in recruiting spies for Russian intelligence?…

That's right. The story and the way it was presented may be extremely confusing, vague and convoluted. However, one thing was made sure of: repeatedly use Russiaas the culprit behind the bribery and corruption and intelligence sabotage involved in the case. Just pay attention to how Armstrong repeats the phrase Russian oligarchy. Take notes on how the official operations via government entities and banks are limited to Russia.Interestingly, the reality and the facts point toward Western entities as culprits. Since 1995, since the assassination attempt on Heyday Aliyev that was planned in the United States and carried out by Abdullah Catli a Turkish paramilitary operative on the CIA payroll since the 1980s the major players in Azerbaijan aiming for its oil and pipeline potentials have been US power-players and their mercenary army called the CIA.I know that, totally by design, Americans have had very little history and context knowledge related to Azerbaijan and other energy source-rich similar Former Soviet States. Rather than going into complex details, I will present a few documented facts pertaining to US-led operations in Azerbaijan, including assassination, bribery, corruption, money laundering and beyond.During the first two years after Heydar Aliyev's election in 1993, the United States tried several times unsuccessfully to recruit Aliyev into its camp for its pipeline-stan project and objectives. Do you remember the infamous BCCI Scandal? Well, the main culprit in the scandal, Roger Tamar, serving his CIA handlers and US oil interest backers, was involved in one of these unsuccessful attempts by the United States to bring Azerbaijan into its sphere of control:

In the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union loosened its grip on Central Asia, Tamraz was the originator of the 1,100-mile (1,800 km) Baku-Ceyhan (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline) considered as "one of the great engineering endeavors", an oil pipeline project, to move 1 million barrels per day (160,000 m[SUP]3[/SUP]/d) of Caspian Sea oil to theMediterranean Sea and thus to world markets. Tamraz managed to obtain support for the proposed pipeline from Turkmen President Niyazov, Azerbaijan's President Heydar Aliyev, and Turkey's Prime Minister, Tansu Çiller, and Turkey's Botas Company. Tamraz's companies negotiated and signed the original pipeline right-of-way transit agreement with the Government of Turkey.

Let's put it this way, things were not going smoothly with Heydar Aliyev, who still carried some loyalty to Russia. When the business and bribery angle failed, the United States and its proxy, Turkey, went to Plan B: assassinate Heydar Aliyev and help install a new guy who would be a willing partner. Thus, came the assassination attempt in 1995 [All Emphasis Mine]:

On 13 March 1995, an armed insurrection aimed at bringing Aliyev down was staged by the special unit of the Interior Troops ("OMON") under the leadership of Colonel Rovshan Javadov. Four days later, on 17 March 1995, the units of Azerbaijani Armed Forces surrounded the insurgents in their camp and assaulted it, killing Javadov. Later, the Turkish parliamentary report on the 1996 Susurluk scandal revealed some details of the involvement of the Turkish governmentled by Prime Minister Tansu Çiller and the Turkish intelligencein this coup attempt.…

Let's add a bit more detail to this Turkish-led assassination attempt. The Turkish man who went to Azerbaijan via Turkey to lead the assassination operation was Abdullah Catli [All Emphasis Mine]:

Çatlı was seen in the company of Stefano Delle Chiaie, an Italian neofascist who worked for Gladio, a secret NATO stay-behindparamilitary organization, while "touring Latin America, and on a visit to Miami in September 1982″. He then went to France, where, under the alias of Hasan Kurtoglu … He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and in 1988 he was handed over to Switzerland, where he was also wanted on charges of drug dealing. However, he escaped in March 1990 with the assistance of mysterious accomplices.…

Right after this mysterious escape, facilitated by a NATO helicopter, this man who was on Interpol and several other international law enforcements' Most Wanted List, somehow, again, very mysteriously, ended up in England, was immediately given a residency permit, and lived there for a couple of years. Then, he mysteriously came to the United States, and more mysteriously received US residency in a matter of weeks, and settled in Chicago. In 1995, for Aliyev's assassination operation, he left Chicago for Turkey, and after a two-day stay in Turkey, he entered Azerbaijan.With unsuccessful recruitment efforts and an unsuccessful assassination attempt which turned into a fiasco further exposing Gladio; the United States went to Plan C: target Aliyev's son, Ilham Aliyev, who was well-known for his weaknesses such as gambling, alcohol and prostitutes of all ages.In late 1995 Turkish mafia operators in the Gladio network began opening casinos in Azerbaijan. Interestingly the Turkish owners of these casinos began offering shares to Aliyev's son, Ilham. In less than two years, the US-Turkish operatives had Ilham Aliyev sucked in: $6 Million in gambling debt in addition to other black-mail material (including taped escapades). By 1998-1999 Father Aliyev shut down the casinos, although, by then, it was already too late: the father and son had been hooked and brought into the Western camp.Let me outline the connections between US Intelligence and Turkish mafia casino owners in Azerbaijan:Almost all Casinos in Azerbaijan were owned and run by a famous Turkish mafia man named Omer Lutfu Topal [All Emphasis Mine]:

Topal was a Turkish businessman, who was deeply involved in the Susurluk scandal. He had convictions for drug smuggling, and was dubbed the "casino king" for the gambling ventures that made his later fortune, which amounted to around $1bn at the time of his assassination.According to Belgian newspapers, he was arrested on June 20, 1978 in Antwerp province of Belgium while carrying 6 kilos of heroin. A fake passport was found on him on the name of Sadık Sami Onar, issued by the Gaziantep Police. Besides, he was accused of drug transfer to the USA over Belgium. He was imprisoned in Belgium between June 14, 1978 and July 23, 1981. Then, he was extradited to the USA in order to serve a sentence passed on him for heroin trafficking. He was prosecuted in New York and sentenced to five years in prison.…

It has already been established that Topal was an active member of US-NATO Gladio operations, and the heroin transfer via Belgium (Hello! NATO) to the US was one of his official assignments. In fact, Topal did not serve a day in jail, despite claims from the US Justice Department.So yes, these were the Gladio-Mafia operators that began taking over Azerbaijan in late 1995. By 1997-1998, in Azerbaijan, both Aliyevs were in our CIA-NATO-US Oil and MIC camp. By 1997-1998 the Russians were mostly out: all money laundering, heroin labs and transfer, blackmail-sabotage and bribery schemes were conducted by us, the United States, either directly, or via proxies such as Turkey. Please be my guest and check all documented cases and reports.Now, back to the story scripted and narrated by Democracy Now! Do you see a single reference to any of these entities and operatives established as the ones in charge of Azerbaijan? No. Turkish banks? Turkish Mafia? No. Turkish Casinos? No. US-Western bribery ongoing and in large sums? No. Cyprus banks where we pay Aliyev outside his country's borders (Yes, that's where we pay bribery to many of these state heads-Northern Cyprus. You want detail? Be my guest and repeat all these classification and gag orders.)? No.But what do we find: Russia, Russian mafia, Russian government officials, Russian Intelligence, Russian Banks, Russian Oligarch, and even Putin. How interesting is that?The Strong Bond That Unites Armstrong, Tigar & Democracy Now!Another task that is a must for a thorough analysis in order to get down to the agenda is identifying the actors involved in information, or in this case, misinformation delivery. I did exactly that. And, I found a common bond tying all the participants of this misinformation campaign broadcasted by Democracy Now! Here we go:Scott ArmstrongAllow me to introduce him via his bios presented by Amy Goodman [All Emphasis Mine]:

Scott Armstrong, a journalist formerly with The Washington Post who has closely followed the case. He is founder and former executive director of the National Security Archives and former chairperson ofthe Government Accountability Project.…

I really don't have to elaborate on his position with one of the most disreputable mainstream outlets in the country. Do I? I didn't think so.Okay, let's move to the National Security Archives founded by Armstrong. For years and years, Armstrong's business (yeh, they call it nonprofit; whatever!), has been one of George Soros' top recipients of large sums. In 2010, only for one year, he received$650,000 from Mr. Soros.Are you with me so far? Good. Let's continue:Mr. Armstrong is also with the Government Accountability Project (GAP). Lo and behold, GAP is also one of Mr. Soros' top recipients of chunky sums. They have been receiving yearly generous funds from Soros for many years. For that same year (above), GAP received $600,000 from George Soros.There are several other very direct and intimate ties between Mr. Armstrong and George Soros, but let's move to our other actors in this staged story.Democracy Now!Let's get down to it by using well-documented and sourced information on Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, and the stage called Democracy Now! [All Emphasis Mine]:

Serious questions have arisen about how Democracy Now!, begun and developed with the resources of Pacifica Radio and grants from the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fundand others, suddenly became independent and the effective property of Amy Goodman without recompense to Pacifica. This transferapparently included valuable assets such as trademarks, ownership of years of archived programs, affiliate station access, and more. In a contract that remains secret, Amy Goodman is also receiving $1 million per year for a five-year period that began in 2002, according to Pacifica Treasurer Jabari Zakiya, to continue doing what has become Pacifica's flagship morning news program. This is more than double Goodman's officially stated stipend of $440,000 per year from Pacifica Radio. Democracy Now! receives indirect funding from George Soros, and direct funding from the Ford Foundation, the Glaser Foundation, Soros' Open Society Institute……

By the way, Amy Goodman has this in common with these people:

Prominent journalists like ABC's Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists' ethical code stating: "avoid all conflicts real or perceived."…

Everyone knows that Goodman and her stage, Democracy Now!, has received millions and millions of dollars from Gorge Soros directly. Of course, no one knows how much exactly, because, Democracy Now is never available to answer that question when asked:

Just that one Soros-funded operation is heard "on over 900 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the United States." But it posts no formal audience numbers. Phone calls to "Democracy Now!" were not returned.…

Michael TigarTigar is introduced by Goodman as Michael Tigar, the renowned attorney, law professor and author, who is representing Rick Bourke. You'd think as an academic and attorney he'd be outside Soros' sphere, right? Well, no!Mr. Tigar's program(s) and work is also being funded, even partially, by George Soros. Soros-funded "Institute for Policy Studies" gives mouthwatering generous sums to Duke Law.Mr. Tigar is known, even by the mainstream media, as one of the most theatrical attorneys in the country. Based on his performance, and that fact he was hired by Bourke, I'd say he must be!Now I know there is such a thing called coincidence. I am even aware of this notion called the law of coincidences.' But come on! We have four participants in this staged show, and every one of them receives George Soros money, and is highly connected to him. Would you call this simple coincidence? If you do, then consider this:For years and years, George Soros has been directly funding the opposition in … you guessed it, Azerbaijan!

Are George Soros' Billions Compromising U.S. Foreign Policy?George Soros is rich enough to buy his own foreign policy, but is it wise to let him have one? Soros' strange pattern of investments and gifts, especially in the former-Soviet states of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, amounts to a personal foreign policy.…Soros has also funded opposition parties in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Georgia, and Macedonia, helping them into either power or prominence. All of these countries were once Russian allies. Of course, Soros doesn't work alone……Soros is actively working to leverage his influence to support Samir Sharifov, perhaps by promoting another "Rose Revolution."…Azerbaijan officials openly wonder if Soros is freelancing or acting with the approval, spoken or unspoken, of the State department and White House in support of Azerbajan's Sharifov. Actually, they wonder only as a matter of politeness. They think they know the answer and that Soros is doing Obama's bidding.…If you read the breathless Russian press coverage of Soros, you'd think Glenn Beck was a decaffeinated moderate. Consider the Russian press coverage of Azerbaijan president Aliyev's visit with Soros in New York in 2004……

Do I have to elaborate on Soros' role and objectives and dirty games in Azerbaijan and the rest of Central Asia and Caucasus?As for his investment in the region, specifically those directly linked to Azerbaijan, oil and pipeline-stan? Who are his partners? Let's see if you recognize any of them:

According to Clark, Soros' International Crisis Group "boasts such independent' luminaries as the former national security advisersZbigniew Brzezinki and Richard Allen, as well as General Wesley Clark, once NATO supreme allied commander for Europe. The group's vice-chairman is the former congressman Stephen Solarz, once described as the Israel lobby's chief legislative tactician on Capitol Hill' and a signatory, along with the likes of Richard Perle andPaul Wolfowitz, … Who are Soros's business partners at the Carlyle Groupone of the world's largest private equity funds, which makes most of this profit from defense contracts? They include the former secretary of state James Baker and Frank Carlucci, former defense secretary, George Bush, Sr, and "until recently, the estranged relatives of Osama Bin Laden." Soros has invested more than $100 million in Carlyle, Clark tells us.…

Isn't it interesting how the most important figures involved in corruption, bribery, sabotage and black-mail, and even assassination in Azerbaijan are not mentioned, name-dropped, by Goodman, González, Tigar, Armstrong, or Bourke himself?! Yeh, I say, it is very interesting. Knowing what I know, 1996-2001 operators were pretty much limited to actors not mentioned in Amy Goodman's staged exposé.And finally, not trying to show off or anything, I consider myself, to a certain extent, an expert on whistleblowers and whistleblowing. Drawn from being one for 12-years, having the only whistleblowers-only organization, having known hundreds of government whistleblowers mainly from intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in addition to years of research and writing about them … Well, I am some sort of an expert, if you may. With that, let me tell you something:This convicted crook multi-millionaire, Rick Bourke, is anything but a whistleblower. This entire staged saga, with all its participants, down to the mainstream media operators showcasing it, is nothing but a massive setup geared towards some dirty objectives pursued by the Intelligence community, and of course, the real business moguls.If you really want to know what this story is about you will have to wait. Wait until you hear some news about the latest warming relationship between Russia-Azerbaijan. Or wait until you hear about some extradition being issued for some Russian intelligence or businessman figure by the U.S. government. Or until you see the next blows thrown from the United States towards Russia with intentions of getting even with Putin on the latest … Or…Meanwhile, consider yourself to a large degree wizened by seeing the CIA-Mega Business interest misinformation operation via outlets marketed as independent and alternative!http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/10/...ts-russia/

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[David Guyatt]

Sibel Edmonds rocks. She really does.

I would be interested to know if she has done any in-depth research on George Soros - who seems to be the behind-the-scenes mover and shaker in this whole affair? My guess is that she has a lot on him, and this might relate to the state secrets privilege she speaks of?

[Peter Lemkin]

These conflicts of interest/funding sources with/to Democracy Now! may explain why certain topics are never touched [although they do a good job with most of the topics they do cover!....there are some they will NOT!]...such as alternatives to the official version of Dallas, 911 or some other very Deep Political Operations.

[Keith Millea]

OH MY...

Serious questions have arisen about how Democracy Now!, begun and developed with the resources of Pacifica Radio and grants from the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fundand others, suddenly became independent and the effective property of Amy Goodman without recompense to Pacifica. This transferapparently included valuable assets such as trademarks, ownership of years of archived programs, affiliate station access, and more. In a contract that remains secret, Amy Goodman is also receiving $1 million per year for a five-year period that began in 2002, according to Pacifica Treasurer Jabari Zakiya, to continue doing what has become Pacifica's flagship morning news program. This is more than double Goodman's officially stated stipend of $440,000 per year from Pacifica Radio. Democracy Now! receives indirect funding from George Soros, and direct funding from the Ford Foundation, the Glaser Foundation, Soros' Open Society Institute……

Think about this paragraph the next time Democracy Now asks you for donations.