[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[redemption]

‘ISLAMIC REGIME initiated 9/11 attacks’
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=3902
22 January 2004

HAMBURG – The Iranian intelligence service was the initiator of the 11 September 2001 suicide-jet attacks on New York and Washington, according to a defector quoted Thursday by German police at the Hamburg terrorist trial.

One Federal Crime Office interrogator said he had taken down a statement in Berlin on Monday from a former Iranian agent who insisted that Iran had employed Saudi radical Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network to carry out the attacks.

The defector could not appear himself in court because he had been promised anonymity, two police officers told the trial of accused plotter Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan student who lived in Hamburg and was friends with three of the four suicide pilots.

The shock claim emerged on the day when a verdict had been scheduled. The prosecution asked for the delay to hear the new evidence. The end of the trial may be delayed for weeks.

The defector, who stated he had fled Iran in July 2001, two months before the attacks, claimed ultimate responsibility lay with a man named Saif al-Adel, who was an official in Iran of Hezbollah, a radial Shiiite organization with close links to Iranian intelligence.

According to the defector, "Department 43" of Iranian intelligence was created to plan and conduct terror attacks, and mounted joint operations with al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden's son, Saad bin Laden, had made repeated consultative visits to Iran.

According to the unnamed agent, Mzoudi too had visited Iran for three months, though the agent said he had never seen him, and did not know at what point in time the visit took place.

The claim runs directly counter to the received wisdom about the attacks: that they were conducted by young Sunni Moslems loyal to Osama bin Laden, a radical Saudi with ideas rooted in his country's Wahabi brand of Islam. Iran's Islam is the opposed Shiite variety.

The 28-year-old police witness said the defector claimed to have first received information about Mzoudi by e-mail after his defection and from "other Iranian intelligence sources".

The defector alleged that following the 11 December release of Mzoudi from trial custody, the sources told him they believed Mzoudi had only been released so that he could be tailed by western investigators hoping he would lead them to other terrorists.

"That is why al-Qaeda is going to liquidate Mzoudi," the defector was said to have stated.

The defector also declared that immediately after fleeing Iran, he had approached CIA station officers at the U.S. embassy in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic adjoining Iran, to warn them attacks were planned.

"He wrote a five-page letter stating that something would happen on 10 or 11 September without precisely delineating what it could be," said the police witness.

The man claimed he had been passing information to the CIA since 1992 and had been promised USD 1.2 million in payment, but had never received the promised money after his defection. He had therefore resolved to sell information to the Germans or French.

"He says he wants to negotiate terms for further cooperation with the federal prosecutor general's office," he said. That prosecutor, assisted by the Federal Crime Office, heads Germany's fight against terrorism.

A second police officer, aged 29, said he found the claims of the defector were "not unrealistic", given what Germany know of the structures of the Iranian intelligence service. But the court was unable to establish more about the credibility of the defector.

The policeman said he did not know why the defector had waited so long to come forward with such explosive information.

Presiding judge Klaus Ruehle pressed both police officers to offer their personal impressions of the man they interrogated.

"It is noticeable that you are both very cautious every time we ask for an assessment of this witness," the judge said to them.

Federal prosecutors suddenly announced Wednesday they had new evidence, more than a week after closing arguments by both sides. The court had been widely expected to pronounce Mzoudi acquitted on Thursday.

Federal prosecutor Walter Hemberger said Thursday that though he had applied for a 30-day extension of the trial, "I don't think we will need the full 30 days." He said a week or two would be enough to weigh the Iranian's credibility.

Mzoudi is accused of assisting in more than 3,000 murders and of being a member of Egyptian student Mohammed Atta's terrorist organization in Hamburg. The state contends Mzoudi must have known what his close friends were planning and was therefore a conspirator.

Prosecutors have demanded he go to jail for 15 years, like Mounir al-Motassadeq, another Moroccan, who was convicted in Hamburg in February last year. But judges freed Mzoudi on December 11 after earlier hearsay evidence relayed by the Federal Crime Office.

In that instance, a person thought to be self-confessed plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh said Mzoudi had not been privy to the conspiracy.

German trial procedure allows such hearsay evidence, which would be prohibited under the Anglo-American legal tradition. Judges said the second-hand statement they attributed to bin al-Shibh created reasonable doubt about Mzoudi's guilt.

Hezbollah is a militant Shiite movement with Iranian and Lebanese branches.

After the 11 September attacks, US diplomats are alleged to have put out feelers to the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, offering a truce with the anti-US group in exchange for all the Shiite group knew about the activities of rival Sunni terrorists.

Hezbollah's spiritual leadership claimed in late 2001 they had received such approaches, but denounced them as an attempt to drive a deeper wedge between the two main denominations of Islam.

The US government has accused Iran of harbouring al-Qaeda operatives, but has not alleged that Iran was behind the attacks.
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[Chicago Tribune]

Surprise Iranian Witness Delays Verdict in Sept. 11 Trial in Germany

Source URL: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/7765063.htm

BY JOHN CREWDSON AND CAM SIMPSON Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - On what had been the eve of his widely expected acquittal, the trial of the second person charged by German authorities as an accomplice of the Sept. 11 hijackers was thrown into turmoil Wednesday after prosecutors disclosed the existence of a surprise witness purporting to link Iran to the hijackings.

The mysterious witness, who goes by the name Hamid Reza Zakeri and claims to have been a longtime member of the Iranian intelligence service, is said to have told German investigators that the Sept. 11 plot represented what one termed a "joint venture" between the terrorist group al-Qaida and the Iranian government.

Sources familiar with the witness' story, greeted with pronounced skepticism by some German intelligence officials, say he also implicates the defendant, a 31-year-old former Moroccan student named Abdelghani Mzoudi, as a knowledgeable participant in the hijacking plot.

"If the story was true, the consequences would be remarkable," said one senior intelligence official, who observed that the wittiness' account comes nearly 2 1/2 years after Sept. 11, 2001, and "looks a little bit constructed."

Zakeri is not expected to appear in the high-security Hamburg courtroom Thursday, where officials of the German federal police, the BKA, have been summoned to explain why they believe Zakeri's testimony is credible.

Sabine Westphalen, a spokeswoman for the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg, said the five-judge panel that will decide Mzoudi's fate had received a 30-page transcript of the BKA's interview with Zakeri conducted within the past few days.

Westphalen said the federal prosecutor had asked "to interrupt the hearing of evidence for 30 days in order to be able to examine the data of the witness and its reliability." No verdict is now expected before Jan. 29.

The appeal to the court to consider Zakeri's story amounts to a last-minute move by the chief German prosecutor, Kay Nehm, to preserve the fast-fading possibility of a conviction in what is likely to be the last trial in Germany of an alleged accomplice of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

In the first such trial, which concluded last year, another Moroccan student, Mounir al-Motassadeq, was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison for aiding the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Motassadeq admitted knowing some of the hijackers but denied any foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 plot, in which four airplane hijackings resulted in more than 3,000 deaths. Mzoudi has taken essentially the same stance.

According to the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, Zakeri reportedly said Mzoudi acted as the hijackers' liaison with their al-Qaida support network.

Until now, the case against Mzoudi has been entirely circumstantial, resting on evidence showing that he performed a number of logistical and "housekeeping" services for the principal hijackers, both before and after they left Hamburg to begin flying lessons in the U.S.

The prosecution's theory, not supported by any direct evidence or testimony, is that Mzoudi must have known why Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, believed to have piloted the two hijacked jets that struck the World Trade Center, had quietly departed northern Germany for Florida.

In December, however, the Hamburg court ordered Mzoudi's release from prison after being informed by the BKA that a confessed Sept. 11 co-conspirator, Ramzi Binalshibh, had told U.S. intelligence agents that those who did know of the hijacking plot had "never talked to others about the true operations or the establishment of a terrorist cell" in Hamburg.

Any credible evidence linking Iran to Sept. 11 would have immediate and profound repercussions for U.S. relations with Iran and the Muslim world. Bush administration officials have included Iran with North Korea and the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein in what they term the "axis of evil."

The Tribune reported last year that Shadi Abadallah, a 26-year-old Jordanian who said he served as one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards in Afghanistan, previously told the BKA that one of the world's most-wanted terrorists, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, described by Secretary of State Colin Powell as an "al-Qaida associate," was closely allied with the Iranian government.

Zarqawi, a one-legged Jordanian national who heads the al-Tawhid terrorist network, which some U.S. officials say is linked to al-Qaida, has been accused by the Bush administration of helping al-Qaida develop plans to attack the West with radioactive and other weapons of mass destruction.

American officials, who say Zarqawi is responsible for the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan, have placed a $5 million reward on his head.

Kenneth R. Timmerman, a senior writer for Washington-based Insight magazine, said he interviewed Hamid Zakeri during several telephone conversations last summer and that the man "told a very credible story."

Timmerman said he had been able to corroborate a number of the physical details provided by Zakeri concerning such things as the physical layout of the Tehran headquarters of the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security, or MOIS.

According to an article Timmerman published in July, Zakeri said that he worked for the Iranians' "supreme leader," Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and that he was present at two meetings between senior Iranian and al-Qaida officials in the months before Sept. 11.

Timmerman said Zakeri had provided him a document purportedly signed by the Iranian intelligence chief, Hojjatoleslam Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, in May of 2001, ordering a strike at this country's "economic structure, their [sic] reputation and their internal peace and security."

Because the Mzoudi case is still before the German court, the CIA declined to comment.

[FreedomWIllCome]

From a year ago..

http://66.34.243.131/iran/html/article740.html

A senior intelligent officer who escaped from Islamic Republic just days ago spoke to Mr.Meybodi today.

He introduced himself as "Hamid Reza Zakeri" (Nourizadeh confirmed his identity).

He revealed that more than 3000 Islamic Mafia have stolen more than $60 Billion which is kept in various foreign banks.

The Islamic Mafia has planned it's exit in 2004 (1383 Arabic calendar).

In the meantime the Islamic Mafia is planning to create civil war in Iran to disintegrate the country in order to ease their escape in the chaos of civil war.

The civil war is planned for the next year. It will start in various provinces; Azarbaijan, Khouzestan, Kordestan, Khorasan, and Balouchestan.

He also revealed that there are close to 5000 spies working for Islamic Republic in various countries.

He declared his allegiance to Reza Pahlavi and asked all Iranians to form a united front against this mafia Islamic family before they destroy our country."

[cyrus]

What is the relation between Iran foreign debt of $60 billion reported by Radio Farda with 3000 Islamic Mafia Gangs who have stolen more than $60 Billion which is kept in various foreign banks revealed by "Hamid Reza Zakeri"?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iran foreign debt is actually $60 billion
Source: U.S. State Dept. Radio Farda
Source URL: http://www.radiofarda.com/transcripts/topstory/2004/01/20040119_1530_0911_0947_EN.asp

Summary of Iran Stories in Today's Broadcasts
Monday, January 19, 2004
Foreign Debt Exceeds $30 Billion

•The country's foreign debt reached $30 billion, according to the latest figures released by the central bank. Considering the government's commitments to oil companies in buy-back oil exploration deals, the foreign debt is actually $60 billion, economic observers warned. Lower oil prices would bring back the foreign debt crisis of the early 1990s. (Fereydoun Khavand, Paris)


[url=http://www.petitiononline.com/bamquake/petition.html]Please Sign Important PLEA FOR JUSTICE - BAM QUAKE GENOCIDE Petition
To Show the World Our Unity, Solidarity and Determination For Free Referendum In Iran Now With BIG NO to any kind of Islamic Regime Election Game, Victory Is Ours! [/url]

[HAMBURG, Germany (AFP)]

Mysterious witness in German Sept 11 trial accuses Islamic Regime in attacks

URL: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040122/wl_mideast_afp/us_attacks_germany_trial_iran_040122153359

HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) - A surprise witness who caused the postponement of a verdict in a trial over the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States has told German authorities that Iranian intelligence was involved in the plot.
Two German federal police officers told the court in Hamburg on Thursday that the witness was an Iranian man claiming to be a former spy for Tehran until mid-2001.

The witness has been called by federal prosecutors who say that he can incriminate Moroccan student Abdelghani Mzoudi, the second man worldwide to stand trial over the suicide hijackings that killed more than 3,000 people.

Mzoudi is accused of being a key member of the so-called Hamburg cell that produced three of the hijackers including alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta.

On Wednesday, the court made a shock announcement that it had agreed to wait to deliver its verdict to assess the credibility of the new witness.

According to German media, the suspect told German police that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and three other ayatollahs met with Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s oldest son at an airbase near Tehran May 4, 2001 to finalize the plans for the attacks.


The officers testified that the witness had told them that Mzoudi had been in Iran and was "active in the logistics of the September 11, 2001 operation," including the "composition and transmission of (encrypted) information to intermediaries".


Mzoudi "knew a lot about codes," the German officer said quoting the witness.

The purported spy also said that bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, blamed for the attacks in New York and Washington, had planned to have Mzoudi "eliminated" because he was suspected of cooperating with German authorities during questioning, the officers said.

The witness said his source for the information was a high-ranking colleague with Iranian intelligence who communicated with him via e-mail and over the telephone.


German officers declined to comment on the credibility of the shadowy witness despite frequent questions by the court. But they confirmed that the man had asked to be paid a large sum to speak to authorities.


"One cannot rule out what he is saying," said one of the officers who was not identified, adding that the witness had appeared "convinced" of his own statements.

Mzoudi, 31, is charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization for his alleged role in the plot.

Prosecutors have demanded the maximum 15 years in prison, the same sentence handed to a fellow Moroccan student last February after he was convicted on the same charges.

[Condoleezza Rice]

22 Jan 2004 01:21 GMT DJ
US Admin Rice: US Must Pursue Nuanced Policy Toward Iran

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004012201210010&Take=1
Copyright © 2004, Dow Jones Newswires


WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. faces a more complicated situation in Iran than it did in Iraq and must craft its policies accordingly.

"People go back and forth in Iran in ways they never did in Saddam Hussein's Iraq," Rice said in a radio interview Wednesday. "A lot is going on in Iran. It's a complicated place and I think we want to have a nuanced policy in dealing with it."

Rice said the U.S. has made "a little bit of progress" in its efforts to disarm Iran and move the country toward democracy. However, she said Iran's regime still will require unified pressure from outside to continue recent reforms and make more progress.

"The international community is going to have to stay very tough on this," Rice said. "They're not going to be able to let the Iranians have the wiggle room that's been the case in the past."

Rice was one of several senior officials interviewed by Fox News Radio host Tony Snow during a White House "media day" for broadcast reporters. The interview aired on KLIF 570 AM radio in Dallas.

During the interview, Snow quizzed Rice on the outlook for another major battle besides the war on terrorism: Super Bowl XXXVIII. Due to time constraints, her response couldn't be broadcast, but Snow reported back on the bottom line.

"She's with the bookies," the talk show host said. "She thinks New England's gonna win, unless of course Carolina gets lucky."

-By Rebecca Christie; Dow Jones Newswires; 202 862 9249.
rebecca.christie@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 21, 2004 20:21 ET (01:21 GMT)

[redemption]

The Islamic Regime is connected to it all!!!!
_________________
IRANIANS UNITE
PERSIA LIVES ON!!
FREE IRAN NOW!

[stefania]

_________________
Referendum AFTER Regime Change

"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)

[Scooter]

NITV had a link a bit over a year ago to some Arab magazine that interview an iran Rev guard defector. In the interview the defector had said that one of the Guards HQ's had models of the WTC and Pentagon in it.

I'm pretty sure about the facts about that....unfortunately, I lost the link and was unable to find the article.

Did anyone else read it?

[farah]

[BERLIN (Reuters)]

Defector: Bin Laden Son 'Forewarned Iran of 9/11'
Source URL: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040127/ts_nm/security_iran_defector_dc_1

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent

BERLIN (Reuters) - An Iranian defector, preparing to testify in Germany's second major Sept. 11 trial, said on Tuesday that a son of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) had personally told Iranian leaders of the planned attacks on U.S. cities in 2001.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi rejected the accusation, saying the defector was not credible and had invented his story.


The defector, who goes by the cover name Hamid Reza Zakeri, told Reuters in a telephone interview that al Qaeda had forewarned Tehran of the attacks because it wanted Iran's help in sheltering its leaders afterwards.


"I'm not saying that Iran had a hand in it (Sept. 11). I'm saying that Iran knew about it," Zakeri said.


"Iran would be the safest place for al Qaeda because it wasn't a country where the U.S. could directly or indirectly intervene" to seize al Qaeda leaders on the run after the planned attacks, he added.


Zakeri says he is a former intelligence official who defected in July 2001 and tried to warn the United States, through its embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, that a major attack would take place on or about Sept. 10.


The Iranian foreign minister, asked about the defector's assertions, told a news conference on Tuesday: "This is untrue. He has made up this information... he has made it up for fraudulent purposes. He wants to make money and his views are of no value."


Western intelligence sources have privately voiced skepticism about Zakeri's accusations, but German prosecutors have taken them seriously enough to call him as a key trial witness.


He is due to testify for the prosecution Friday in the case of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan accused of conspiring with the al Qaeda "Hamburg cell" that provided three of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers. Another Moroccan, Mounir El Motassadeq, was convicted in Germany on similar charges last year but will hear the outcome of his appeal Thursday.


TOP-LEVEL QAEDA VISITS

Speaking by mobile phone from an undisclosed location, Zakeri said he had handled security arrangements in January 2001 for a visit of about 30 al Qaeda members to Iran, led by Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.


Zakeri said he had previously seen Zawahiri several times since 1996 at camps used by the militant group Hizbollah in Iran. The talks took place southeast of Tehran, lasted four days and were headed on the Iranian side by a representative of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he said.


Four months later, in May 2001, Zakeri said he had been ordered to collect a VIP delegation arriving by army helicopter at a special base east of the Iranian capital.


This time the guest was Osama's son Saad bin Laden, accompanied by three bodyguards. Zakeri said the visit lasted three days and included late-night talks with Khamenei, ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and three other top leaders.


Zakeri said he was not part of the discussions and not privy to details of the Sept. 11 plot or the targets, but added: "I knew in general that there was an operation being prepared against Israel and the United States for September 10."


He said he passed a warning to a CIA (news - web sites) official in Baku, but "they didn't take me seriously."


Zakeri said he had not wanted to testify in the Mzoudi case, but had been drawn in after telling German investigators he had received information by email from someone else relating to al Qaeda activity in Germany.

He said he was under close German police protection after contacts in Iran had warned him his life was in danger.

"They said: 'They sent the people already, and they are very close to the door.' I know what that means. It means they are very close to kill me. But already I informed the German authorities and the German police... I'm all right, hopefully I'm safe," he said.