This isn't new information, and not particularly relevant to 9/11 other than to give another example of the kind of influence and loopholes the world's elite get to utilize. So
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061219/ap_on_re_eu/ireland_secret_payments">this article just popped up today about final report on a corruption scandal in Ireland back in the late 80's and early 90's involving wealthy foreigners buying passports. It mentions a "Saudi Sheik" paying off former Irish prime minister Charles Haughey $85k to get passports for his relatives. Turns out this Saudi Sheik is bin Mahfouz. Here's
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/11/wire11.xml">an article from October of 2001 talking more about it, and he got Irish citizenship out of the deal. And here's an article from 1997 that mentions how all the people that bin Mahfouz got passports for in 1990
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml;jsessionid=BMID0EANA3VYBQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?html=/archive/1997/10/06/wire06.html">were connected to BCCI:
...
While Irish minister for justice in 1990, Mr Burke had signed Irish naturalisation for certificates for Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz and 10 other wealthy Arabs even though the men had never lived in the Irish Republic or paid the requisite fee. All those to whom the passports were given were later linked to the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
...
It's unclear if they were connected to BCCI merely by being related to the bin Mahfouz's or if they were employees running the bank, or even if his Irish passport has ended up protecting him from any authorities, but it's still an interesting piece of info.
OTOH, the case of Victor Kozeny, the Czech fugitive financier that hired Atta's buddy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1789152.htm">Wolfang Bohringer
http://www.madcowprod.com/120112006.html">as his personal pilot, is a prime example of how useful these passports can be. First, let's look at this
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1817758,00.html">October 2005 London Times article on Kozeny's extradition:
The Sunday Times October 09, 2005
Kozeny set to lose his Irish citizenship
John Burns and Sean O’Driscoll, New York
THE Department of Justice has taken preliminary steps to strip Czech-born Viktor Kozeny of his Irish citizenship, following his arrest in the Bahamas last week on bribery charges.
Multi-millionaire Kozeny acquired Irish citizenship in 1995 under the investment-for-passports scheme, which has since been abolished. At the same time he renounced his Czech citizenship.
But justice department officials have been liaising with authorities in the Bahamas with a view to revoking Kozeny’s certificate of naturalisation. Under Irish law a certificate can be withdrawn if the person applies to become a citizen of another country. Benjamin Brafman, Kozeny’s lawyer, says he has applied to become a citizen of the Bahamas.
His lawyer also hopes that Kozeny, 42, who has been charged in America with 27 counts of bribery in Azerbaijan, will beat the charges because of his Irish passport.
...
Kozeny is charged with using $11m (€9.1m) of American investors’ money to bribe government officials in Azerbaijan. Andrew Arena, an FBI investigator said that a €250m oil privatisation scheme that Kozeny masterminded failed, and the company remained in government hands. “It appears corrupt officials scammed the scammers. They pocketed the bribe money without ever delivering the quid pro quo,” he said.
...
One of Kozeny's partners in the oil privatization scheme was AIG. Back in 1999, not long after AIG invested $15 million in the joint venture, they sued for their money back, saying Kozeny stole embezzled it. Kozeny responded that they all knew that the money was for bribes (and he appeared to be right on that account
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/insurance/2005-10-06-scandal-usat_x.htm?csp=34">based on this 2005 federal indictment).
...
Kozeny is already wanted in the Czech Republic for masterminding a sham privatisation in which 80,000 small investors lost a fortune. Authorities in Prague issued international arrest warrants two years but Kozeny took refuge on the Bahamian island of Lyford Cay.
...
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/71413">It was in 1995, the same year, that Kozeny got his Irish passport and settled in the Bahamas, that Kozeny also allegedly started looting the "Harvard Investments Fund" he set up to loot the "privatization vouchers" given out to Czech citizens after the fall of Communism (much like what took place in Russia).
It's also important to note that the Prague authorities issued an international arrest warrant, as opposed to a European Arrest Warrant, as it both highlights the fuzzy nature of international laws that protects our ever-growing international elite criminal class while also pointing out how the same guys that set up the Czech privatization scheme back in the early 90's were the same ones in power that an effective extradition request by the Czech government. To see why, let's take a look at this
http://www.praguepost.com/articles/2005/11/23/on-the-run-from-czech-authorities.php">November 2005 Prague Post article:
On the run from Czech authorities
Complicated laws help fugitives find freedom in Europe and beyond
By Scott Domer
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
November 23rd, 2005
The names Viktor Kožený, Radovan Krejčíř, Tomáš Puta and Maroš Šulej are well known in the Czech Republic. All are fugitives, but not one remains on Czech soil and, despite extradition proceedings, it is unlikely that any one of these major crime suspects will stand trial in Prague any time soon.
In the cases of Kožený and Krejčíř, the problem is related to the interpretation of extradition treaties; for reputed Berdych gang members Půta and Šulej, who are living freely in Ireland, the problem is that the situation was potentially avoidable.
The Czech Republic has issued international arrest warrants for both Půta and Šulej, which the Irish government refuses to recognize, because there is "no provision in Irish law for the execution of an international arrest warrant," said Paul Harper, a spokesman for the Irish Department of Justice.
As a member of the European Union, Harper said, Ireland can only consider surrender requests on the basis of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW), the agreement between member states enacted July 1, 2004, that was intended to replace classic extradition with a simpler, faster surrender procedure.
The Czech Republic, however, has ruled that the EAW applies only for crimes committed after Nov 1, 2004. The only other extradition option for fugitives from Czech soil suspected of crimes committed before that date is the international arrest warrant, which not all countries honor.
It remains to be seen whether other EU countries where Czech crime suspects have been located will react the same way Ireland has. If so, the Czech Republic will have to deal with the extradition process for each one individually.
Eva Dundáčková of the Civic Democrats (ODS), a member of the chamber's constitutional legal committee, said, "The ODS did not support the motion in the chamber as we felt that it offered insufficient protection to Czech citizens. On one hand, the government said it wanted to fight organized crime this way and that's something we are very much in favor of, but the conditions were not set up well enough to protect our citizens against possible abuse of the law and that is why we couldn't offer our support."
Dundáčková failed to provide examples of whose rights would be endangered by making the EAW retroactive.
Petr Dimun, spokesman for the Justice Ministry, declined to comment on the extradition of Puta and Šulej, citing the seriousness of the cases.
The European Commission criticized the Czech Republic for choosing the late effective date in a February 2005 provisional evaluation of the EAW and surrender procedures between member states, warning that "extradition requests which continues to present therefore risk being rejected by the other member states."
Both the Justice and Foreign Affairs ministries declined to comment on any possible changes to the Czech position on the application of the EAW.
In the cases of Kožený and Krejčíř, the country's two most infamous financial fugitives, the country has tried different tacks involving extradition — but with no more success. For both men the Justice Ministry has tried to invoke a 1925 treaty between Czechoslovakia and the United Kingdom that included British colonies to take back Kožený from his posh home in the Bahamas and Krejčíř from his beachfront Seychelles digs.
...
While the Czech government has been proactive in its attempt to negotiate the extradition of Kožený and Krejčíř, it may have to revisit its decision on the date of the application of the EAW. If prosecutors choose not to address this problem, wanted criminals who committed crimes on Czech soil before autumn 2004 may be enjoying the good life in the rest of Europe for some time to come.
That's a nice lil' loophole they have in place: if you committed your crime before November of 2004, they can't use the new European Arrest Warrants. This is partly because Czech President Vaclav Klaus
http://www.irishdemocrat.co.uk/window-on-the-eu/politicus-septemberoctober-2004/">vetoed the bill on the EAWs that the Czech parliament passed in October of 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Klaus">Vaclav Klaus co-founded the right-wing (and
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/Art/0224/opin1.php">scandal ridden) Civic Democratic Party in 1991. He's also a strong advocate of the kind of libertarian economic models promoted by the
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mont_Pelerin_Society">Mont Pelerin Society, and not surprisingly pushed his pet project of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voucher_privatization">voucher privatization scheme on the
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970623/europe.the_sun_also_.html">state-owned Czech economy. This is the scheme that Victor Kozeny came to dominate by suckering the Czech public into his "Harvard Investment Funds" scam before taking the money and running to the Bahamas.
And how has the extradition proceeded? Well, in September 29 2006 a
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000034/003490.htm">Bahamian court ruled that Korzeny could be extradited to the US, although, according to this December 14, 2006 report,
http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=10884">he's still in prison awaiting a final ruling on the extradition.
So that's just an example of how folks like bin Mahfouz and Korzeny can escape justice, or at least delay it for years, with a little help from corrupt officials working with laws and legal interpretations seemingly designed to protect these guys.
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