Trib writes,
Four attorneys have told the Tribune in recent days that federal prosecutors have telephoned them and other attorneys either with news Rezko is talking, or armed with details only Rezko could know. The lawyers speculated prosecutors are using the preliminary talks with Rezko to shake loose more cooperation from other witnesses.I'm guessing Feds shaking Ayham Alsammare lose too. Read more...
Whow...no sooner do I comment to Bored Now about waiting for Rezko to talk about friend Ayham Alsammarae and Alsammarae (the guy who put up bond for Rezko) talks, and talks tough. Talisman Gate via Rezko Watch.
There’s so much vileness here that I really don’t know what to mop up first.Talisman Gate told me the fellow to the right of Blagojevich at that dinner in 2004 at the Four Seasons was Alsammarae. The other is a photo of Alsammarae at this Press Conference.
Ayham Alsammarae, Iraq’s slimy ex-Minister of Electricity under the Bremer and Allawi administrations, who had escaped from an Iraqi prison by hiring an American security company to break him out back in December 2006, has resurfaced in the Jordanian capital Amman where he gave a press conference today saying, among other things, that he hoped that the insurgency in Iraq “would continue [against U.S. occupation] and avenges the Iraqi people.”
Alsammarae, an Iraqi-American Chicagoan, added during remarks carried by Radio Sawa (Arabic link) that he had contributed the maximum allowable of $2,300 to Barack Obama’s campaign. But there’s another Obama link to Alsammarae: while serving as electricity minister Alsammarae had been involved in brokering deals in the Iraqi electricity sector for Antoin Rezko, Obama’s long-term friend and patron. Rezko is the Syrian-American hustler who was convicted of fraud in an Illinois court on the day that Obama secured the Democratic nomination.
Rezkowatch writes
Today, RezkoWatch received an emailed 3-page letter from media lawyer Alasdair Pepper of London's Carter-Ruck which stated that Nadhmi Auchi is a client. The letter enumerated a list of cited material from RezkoWatch which Pepper, on behalf of his client, said,..."contains numerous highly defamatory and false allegations, in addition to other false claims about our client" and that it makes "very serious allegations and claims without making any real attempt to check the truth of them.......That said, any characterization of Nahdmi Auchi as "corrupt" or involved with "corruption" have been removed from RezkoWatch unless they are contained within cited source material.
Additionally, RezkoWatch articles containing information about Nadhmi Auchi from questionable sources have been archived while those sources and information contained therein are verified.
Cheers I guess....I'm sure it's still talley-ho with Patrick Fitzgerald.For the first time, the FBI "mole" who's expected to be a key prosecution witness against indicted developer and political fund-raiser Tony Rezko is talking.I don't have a crystal ball. I just have a hard time believing this isn't going to be big trouble for Obama and Democrats over all.
In an exclusive interview with the Sun-Times, John Thomas said his life became frantic as he amassed hundreds of hours of recorded conversations for federal investigators while trying to maintain the real estate business he built on pluck and hustle.
[***]
Thomas wouldn't discuss details of his work for the FBI.
But sources said that, for more than two years when he was giving information to agents, Thomas provided a fly-on-the-wall look inside Rezko's real estate operations and his desperate attempts to keep his projects afloat.
Sources said Thomas also logged frequent visits to Rezko from Gov. Blagojevich and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). [my emphasis] Blagojevich and Obama were among the many politicians for whom Rezko raised campaign cash. Neither has been charged with any wrongdoing.
Here's Fosters first ad against Oberweis on Iraq.
How does this square with Illinois Democrats getting loans from an Iraqi ex-Baathist implicated in the Food for Oil Scandal? The AP's Exclusive: Indicted Blagojevich fundraiser got loan from Iraqi
And a photo of our Gov sitting between that Iraqi billionaire and Iraq's Minister of Electricity, convicted of looting Iraq, and --alleged by PM Maliki-- to have been sprung from Jail in the Green Zone by Blackwater now with a campus in Illinois?
Now wonder why Congress is investigating Drugs in Baseball instead of following through with Waxman's call for investigating corruption in Iraq?
Today the House with a vote of 395-21 passed the Iraq Corruption Resolution, introduced on Friday, October 12, 2007, by Chairmen Waxman and Tierney. In his statement on the House floor, Chairman Waxman called the State Department abuses of the classification system “outrageous” and demanded answers to questions about corruption in Iraq.Tin Foil hat stuff?
ABC linked to Middle East Online for a series of photos of Nadhmi Auchi with Blagojevich and Emil Jones.
ABC claims the man to Blagojevich's right is Rezko,
A Middle East Web site shows a photograph of what it described as Auchi visiting Illinois government officials in April 2004, with Rezko visible on the right of the photo.
Update: Middle East Online and GMH have trashed their links to the Auchi Blagojevich Emil Jones bash so here's the pic of Auchi and Jones from the site yesterday, Regarding that top picture, I immediately recognized the third man as Alsamarrae.Check the comments in his post Obama’s Saddam Connection?
Today's Trib says,
Eight months after Aiham Alsammarae escaped from a Baghdad jail and returned to his home in suburban Chicago, an Iraqi judge has thrown the book at him, sentencing the former electricity minister in absentia to 21 years in prison in a corruption case.While the ST told us a few days ago,
Yet Alsammarae, an Oak Brook resident who had gone back to his native Iraq to serve in the government after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, isn't exactly hiding at home. He says he recently returned to the maelstrom of Iraqi politics, traveling to Jordan to join other Iraqi officials in forming an opposition front as he continues to insist on his innocence.
Reached on a Jordanian cell phone, the Iraqi-American dual citizen, 55, said he is in Amman meeting with Iraqi political leaders in an effort to counter what he says is Iranian influence in the Shiite-majority government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has been prosecuting him.
Rezko, 52, is fighting federal charges that he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Blagojevich. Sources in December told the Sun-Times the feds are investigating Rezko's dealings in Iraq, where Rezko once had a contract from Alsammarae's agency to build a power plant.Makes you wonder if Alsammarae isn't running from Fitz's questions instead?
Alsammarae, who lives in the Chicago area and was a college classmate of Rezko, is a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen. He left his post as Iraq's electricity minister in May 2005, about a month after Companion got the contract. Alsammarae was accused of financial corruption by Iraqi authorities and jailed in Iraq last year before escaping and returning here.
Companion's contract called for it to fly 150 Iraqis to the United States for police-type training. Among the subjects: how to shoot AK-47 rifles.
As Frawley sought to revive the contract in spring 2006, Blagojevich's chief of staff, John Harris, directed the state's homeland security adviser, Jill Morgenthaler, to find "a military site for the training of Iraqi police forces,'' Morgenthaler wrote in an April 26, 2006, e-mail. She wrote the letter in June 2006 offering the Savanna site.
Mr. Alsammarae shed little direct light on the two leading theories of how he escaped: either with the help of a mysterious Western private security firm that appeared at the station on Sunday, or with the complicity of the Iraqi police.
“I don’t like to harm these people who helped me,” he said.
Despite the charges against him, Mr. Alsammarae said he did not believe that the American authorities would arrest him in Chicago. “I hope they are smarter than that,” he said.
Bravo to the Sun Times for continuing to connect the dots with Rezko, Alsammarae and Illinois's efforts to export Illinois's politics of graft to Iraq.
That Blagojevich's staff could be talking to a company like Companion this summer given the history with Alsammarae, Rezko and Runman is unfathonamble. What can they be thinking.
Two years ago, Iraq's Ministry of Electricity gave a $50 million contract to a start-up security company owned by now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko and a onetime Chicago cop with a checkered financial past.Read more...
Within a month, an Iraqi leadership change left the deal in limbo.
Now the company, Companion Security, is working to revive its contract to train Iraqi power-plant guards in the United States.
Companion found support last summer from Gov. Blagojevich, whose staff offered to let the company lease a military facility in western Illinois. Since then, Companion has been lobbying officials from Washington to Baghdad about its Iraqi deal, according to documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Blagojevich's offer to assist Companion came as a federal investigation into Rezko's state-government dealings was heating up. A former top fund-raiser for the governor and other politicians, Rezko was indicted on corruption charges in October -- four months after Blagojevich's homeland security chief wrote a letter inviting Companion to train the guards at the Savanna Army Depot.
And no response to my email to Obama's office if he supports Iraq's efforts to get him back.
From KansasCity.com: Former Iraqi electricity minister returns to Illinois home, (Originally in the Chicago Tribune)
After spending four months in an Iraqi prison and pulling off an audacious jailbreak, Aiham Alsammarae flew quietly back into Chicago and was behind the desk of his Downers Grove, Ill., engineering firm Tuesday.and a little more...
In an hourlong interview, the former Iraqi electricity minister who is still wanted on corruption charges in his native Iraq gave new details of his escape. The dramatic jailbreak included a high-speed run to the Baghdad International Airport, a private jet that flew him out of the country and back-channel talks with Iraqi political leaders on how to extricate himself.
The Iraqi judge overseeing the case expressed surprise that Alsammarrae had turned up in Chicago, and vowed to take "all legal measures" to return him to Iraq.
Alsammarae, who has long been friends with indicted political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, also sought to distance himself from allegations that he oversaw Rezko's bid to build a power plant in northern Iraq.Read more...
Alsammarae said he learned through news reports that federal authorities are interested in speaking to him about his relationship with Rezko, but he said that authorities have made no attempts to contact him. The two have been "good friends" since they met while studying for advanced degrees at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the late 1970s, Alsammarae said.
The power plant was never built and Rezko's $150 million contract is no longer in effect. Alsammarae declined to give further details about the project, but said that he would be willing to speak with federal authorities about it. He added that the project was under the Kurdish Regional Government authority and outside his purview.
Rezko friend Ahim Alsammarae appeared in Dubai yesterday per this from CBS.
Also, two paragraphs from a redacted CPA memo Jason Vest used for this story on Iraqi Reconstruction. Here are two paragraphs from the memo with probable references to Alsammarae. He's one with a photo with Bush as described below.
I've always believed (and still do) we fight in Iraq to bring Democracy. I didn't realize we were bringing Democracy with a Chicago face though.
Read the whole memo.
Iraqis politicians, ordinary Iraqis, and U.S. contractors have the sense that Bremer’s goal is to leave Iraq with his reputation intact. He therefore hesitates to take tough but necessary decisions, instead hoping to foist them onto his successor or international organizations. Success should not be seen as the state of Iraqi on June 30, but rather the state of Iraq on July 31, September 30, or November 30. It is essential we transfer sovereignty to an Iraq built upon the strongest possible template. We need to use our prerogative as occupying power to signal that corruption will not be tolerated. We have the authority to remove ministers. To take action against men like [REDACTED] would win us applause on the street, even if their GC sponsors would go through the motions of complaint. The alleged kickbacks that [REDACTED] is accepting should be especially serious for us, since he was one of two ministers who met the President and has his picture taken with him. If such information gets buried on the desks of middle-level officials who do not want to make waves [Baar's emphasis], then short-term gain will be replaced by long-term ill.Make no waves... Milt Rakove would know. I hope Fitzgerald gets Alsammarae talking.
We so share culpability in the eyes of ordinary Iraqis. After all, we appointed the Governing Council members. Their corruption is our corruption. When [REDACTED] work to exclude followers of other trends of Shi’a political thought from minister and deputy minister positions, Iraqis blame Bremer, especially because the Governance Group had assured Iraqis that their exclusion from the Governing Council did not mean an exclusion from the process. As it turned out, we lied. People from Kut, for example, see that they have no representation on the Governing Council, and many predict civil war since they doubt that the Governing Council will really allow elections.
The flamboyant former minister peppered his remarks on Monday with colorful statements, saying he has ``lovers everywhere in the world'' and that his defense would be easier if Iraq adopted libel laws similar to those in the United States.Read more...
``We have to start suing those guys so they shut up,'' he said of Iraqi court officials who have declared him a fugitive from justice.
She got that right. Today's Sun Times,
A 51-year-old Syrian-born wunderkind from Wilmette, Rezko was always the quiet, low-key guy who preferred the shadows to center stage. An immaculate, moneyed Dr. Phil lookalike, Rezko's special gift was spotting stars before anyone knew they would be stars. And doing them favors, seemingly for free. And so for years, whether it was campaigning for the late Mayor Harold Washington in 1983, or raising big bucks for former Cook County Board President John Stroger in the '90s, or helping raise money for Sen. Barack Obama, whose rock star possibilities Rezko recognized years earlier, Rezko was ready with hefty infusions of his own cash and millions of dollars of other people's money. And it wasn't just Democrats whom he supported. Republicans from President Bush to former Gov. Jim Edgar got a little lift from Tony.And he links to world problems and wars too,
Rezko, let's remember, was "traveling" internationally when his indictments were handed down. He has interesting friends the world over. The emir of Qatar is a pal. The former Iraq electricity minister, Aiham Alsammarae, who resides in west suburban Oak Brook when he's not on the lam from a Baghdad lockup, is a Rezko business colleague who's been indicted in connection with $2 billion in missing money meant to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. The feds are investigating what role Rezko may have had in that deal.The only good thing here is 2007 will be a bonanza year for Illinois bloggers. You'll be getting lots of google hits for Rezko Obama combinations. A lot of e-emails from people asking questions.
And much closer to home, the feds continue to pursue Rezko's past real estate dealings with Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich, a business relationship that began in 1997.
Meanwhile, Rezko's city developments, "minority partners" and contracts with Cook County are also under the federal microscope.
Some really talented people can play three-level chess in their head. Rezko can do even better than that. He could master at least four levels of government -- city, county, state and international -- all at once.
Lots of stuff on the blogs now about Alsammarae donating to Bush before and after Alsammarae's appointment as Iraqi Oil minister. Samples here, here, and here. These folks don't realize there's a combine in Illinois and our tradition is don't back no losers.
Independent Sentinel wrote,
...and is now a fugitive, on the run, from corruption charges.
Seems like a free-for-all out there, for corrupt bussines types, just like here.
The Bushites are creating a Capitalist nightmare in their own image, in Iraq.
More like Illinois's image.
I'm worried Alsammarae will be sent shackled back to Iraq before our Fitzgerald has a chance to talk with him about old friend Tony Rezko. From today's Sun Times,
Federal authorities in Chicago have expressed interest in Alsammarae's links to recently indicted businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a former top fund-raiser for Gov. Blagojevich who won an Iraqi power plant contract while Alsammarae was electricity minister. The contract no longer is in effect.I hope Fitzgerald gets the chance to talk with Alsammarae for a long time. I'm worried it won't happen because the capitalist nightmare will silence the canary.
Authorities here want to learn more about the deal because Rezko and Alsammarae know each other, and each has been accused of corruption, a source familiar with the investigation told the Sun-Times. Alsammarae and Rezko attended the Illinois Institute of Technology together in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
He [Alsammarae]admits that his attempts to introduce groups who attack Coalition troops as political entities was not entirely altruistic since he declared in this Voice of America interview that he intended to run in the December 2005 elections. Ultimately, his attempts to reconcile with insurgents was a failed venture that resulted in a February 2006 attack on Alsammarae's convoy that he escaped but injured two of his security contractors.Got to admit, he sounds awfully Chicago; larger than life. I hope he makes it home to write a book... although I'm not sure how much of it I'd believe.
His troubles were just beginning. The predominately Shia government filed charges of corruption, when Alsammarae's returned to inquire about the nature of the charges were, he found himself surprised to be held in a Green Zone prison awaiting trial.
So now Dania and other family members are pleading with American government officials, including Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama, to intervene and ensure Aiham's safety.Update: Biden's blog posts on the story too. Read more...
"We are hoping the State Department will step in and save his life," said Dania, who recently returned home to Oak Brook from a medical school in Ireland.
Christina Angarola, spokesperson for Durbin, declined to discuss specifics, but said the senator is actively communicating with the State Department about Aiham's safety.
"We are in frequent contact with the Department of the State to check up on this," Angarola said.
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