Clearstream and Ernest Backes

[Tony Guerrier]

Time ago I was searching some info about the Clearstream, and Ernest Backes, the clearstream whisteblower, and after reading the translation of this article, I discovered he is a former BND agent. After some research I found that the author of the article (the investigative journalist Frank Krüger) wrote the dossier "Von Clearstream bis Yukos" (in german langage only) on the Yukos affair, and was able to connect Backes to Khodorkovsky's arrest (btw in 2003 Khodorkovsky's shares in Yukos passed to Jacob Rothschild).
So I sent this mail to Mr Krüger, asking (among others) for his opinion on Backes and clearstream affair:

[...]I have a really great interest in themes involving the hidden history, and the "orthodoxy of power" by which I mean, among others, the mechanisms of oppression of human freedom (of tought and physical). I'm versed in the italian form of those mechanisms, but its simply to see that they are just part of a much more complex structure. Here comes my interest for Ernest Backes: trying to understend deeply the complex structure, I found, among others, "Revelation$" the book written by Denis Robert and Ernest Backes, explaining the role of the Clearstream in the international banking contest and it was really usefull to fill some missing link on techical, but not less important, details on historical events such as the Iran Contra affair, the "Banco Ambrosiano" crash, the BCCI scandal. Following the money I have the trace of people involved and the logic who moves them.
Yesterday I tryed to gain new informations on clearstream and on Ernest Backes:
I found some archives http://cryptome.quintessenz.org/mirror/clearstream.xls, http://wikileaks.org/leak/clearstream-co...s-2004.pdf,
the sad news about the will of Denis Robert to stop his investigations on Clearstream and those kind of compensations banks (http://www.ladominationdumonde.blogspot.com/),
and your talk on Ernest Backes on http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Talk:Ernest_Backes, and this last thing really got me interested in it and I found a confermation on David Guyatt posts in this thread http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...est+backes, and in other online news. After reading all this its natural to ask about the real aim behind the decision of Ernest Backes to talk, and that's why I asked you about what you think over him.[...]

Mr. Krüger answerd me that he was very busy at that time and:
"[...]Beside it is impossible to go into details. But that would be necessary for the understanding of complicate political and/or historical subjects and their interdependencies. I can't represent in a few sentences political and historical research results about which I write books of several hundred pages - especially not in English, which is not my mother tongue. Beyond it takes up too much of my time to write in English, but the results will never be satifactory.[...]"
So he proposed to answer after a while.

Till now I had no answer (I understand Mr. Krüger reasons and I guess his time is almost completely filled with his investigative work), so I ask you your opinion on the figure of Backes, and all the informations you have on this affair and on the implications of Clearsteam in past and new [B]events of deep politics[/B]

[David Guyatt]

I know Frank Kruger and also have met Backes when he worked at Cedel, the forerunner of Clearstream. Not least I also have met Lucy Komisar who has also interviewed Backes and then worked with him on the Russian Yukos deal, which Frank investigated and learned was a BND operation, which he wrote about in his newspaper articles. As I remember from our telephone conversations and emails at the time, Frank said that Ernest Backes verbally admitted to him that he was working for BND.

Pulling all this things together I grew the distinct impression that Cedel/Clearstream became a battleground for control of one of the two world securities clearing systems.

Now some background: back when Cedel was born, the founders had as their aim a wholly European bond clearing system that was a competitor to the American controller Euroclear that was run and owned by the then Morgan Guaranty bank. The European didn't trust Euroclear not to pass on information, i.e., "intelligence", on principal European banking transactions to other American institutions.

I know this because I was told this history during a day long business trip to Cedel when I was -- oddly enough - working for a London based Wall Street investment bank and had decided, quite against the grain of the time, to open an account with Cedel and use them (as well as Euroclear) because I didn't want one institution (i.e., Euroclear) to have complete control over my clearing operations.

So when Frank Kruger told me the story of Ernest Backes (I was already familiar with Revelation$ and had by then met Lucy Komisar and had been in contact again with Backes) I formed the opinion that Clearstream had become a battlefield over who controlled it.

Hope this helps.