Lebanese man is target of first rendition under Obama

[Cees Binkhorst]

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latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/afghanistan/la-na-rendition22-2009aug22,0,2566307.story

Contractor Raymond Azar is arrested in Afghanistan, hooded, stripped and
flown to the U.S. His alleged crime? Bribery. A human rights activist
calls the case 'bizarre.'

By Bob Drogin August 22, 2009 Reporting from Alexandria, Va.

A Lebanese citizen being held in a detention center here was hooded,
stripped naked for photographs and bundled onto an executive jet by FBI
agents in Afghanistan in April, making him the first known target of a
rendition during the Obama administration.

Unlike terrorism suspects who were secretly snatched by the CIA and
harshly interrogated and imprisoned overseas during the George W. Bush
administration, Raymond Azar was flown to this Washington suburb for a
case involving inflated invoices.

Azar, 45, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to commit bribery, the only
charge against him. He faces a maximum of five years in prison, but a
sentence of 2 1/2 years or less is likely under federal guidelines.

Defense lawyers and prosecutors declined to comment on the case Friday.

But Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counter-terrorism director at Human
Rights Watch, called the case "bizarre."

"He was treated like a high-security terrorist instead of someone accused
of a relatively minor white-collar crime," she said.

Justice Department lawyers have denied any misconduct in the case.

"The FBI followed standard operating procedures when transporting
prisoners to the United States," Gina Talamona, a Justice Department
spokeswoman, said Friday. She said restraints "were used with the sole
purpose of ensuring the safety of the defendants and the agents."

As the Obama administration steps up efforts to curb fraud at military
facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Army official said Azar's
case "should serve as a warning" to other contractors.

In court papers, Azar said he was denied his eyeglasses, not given food
for 30 hours and put in a freezing room after his arrest by "more than 10
men wearing flak jackets and carrying military style assault rifles."

Azar also said he was shackled and forced to wear a blindfold, dark hood
and earphones for up to 18 hours on a Gulfstream V jet that flew him from
Bagram air base, outside Kabul, to Virginia.

Before the hood was put on, he said, one of his captors waved a photo of
Azar's wife and four children and warned Azar that he would "never see
them again" unless he confessed.

"Frightened for his immediate safety . . . and under the belief he would
end up in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib to be tortured,"
Azar signed a paper he did not understand, his lawyers told the court.

Prosecutors, however, said that Azar was "treated professionally," kept in
a heated room, offered food and water repeatedly and "provided with
comfortable chairs to sit in."

They said he was photographed naked and subjected to a cavity search to
ensure that he did not carry hidden weapons and was fit for travel. Court
records confirmed that Azar was shackled at the ankles, waist and wrists
and made to wear a blindfold, hood and earphones aboard the plane.

Prosecutors also said that FBI agents read Azar his rights against
self-incrimination on three occasions, and that he "voluntarily" waived
them.

The FBI agent in charge, Perry J. Goerish, denied in an affidavit that
Azar was "told he would never see his family again unless he confessed."

Arrested along with Azar was Dinorah Cobos, 52, a naturalized American
from Honduras. Cobos, who did not make the same claims of abuse, this week
pleaded guilty to conspiracy and bribery.

Their case is different from the widely criticized "extraordinary
renditions" carried out after the Sept. 11 attacks. In those cases, CIA
teams snatched suspected Al Qaeda members and other alleged terrorists
overseas and flew them, shackled and hooded, to prisons outside the United
States without any arrest warrants or other judicial proceedings.

The FBI arrested Azar and Cobos with warrants signed by a federal
magistrate. And the State Department, Talamona said, asked the government
of Afghanistan "for its consent in advance to take these two individuals
into custody and return them to the United States to stand trial. They
consented to our request."

Azar and Cobos worked for a Lebanese construction company, Sima Salazar
Group, which was awarded more than $50 million in Pentagon contracts for
reconstruction and supply work in Afghanistan. In December, according to
the indictment, the pair offered to pay kickbacks to an Army Corps of
Engineers officer in Kabul. In exchange, he agreed to approve $13 million
in outstanding bills from Sima Salazar.

Over the next four months, according to the charges, more than $106,000
was wired to the officer's bank account in Manassas. But the case was an
FBI sting, and Azar and Cobos were arrested at Camp Eggers, a U.S.
military base in Kabul, after being lured to a meeting April 7.

Sima Salazar Group is also under indictment.

On Wednesday, Cobos' sister, Gloria Martinez, 61, pleaded guilty in
federal court in New Orleans to conspiracy and two counts of bribery in a
related case. Prosecutors said Martinez, a senior Army Corps of Engineers
official, accepted $425,000 in cash, jewelry and other gifts for herself
and Cobos from companies seeking military contracts in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

As a candidate last year, President Obama vowed to end "the practice of
shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off
countries."

After taking office, he ordered the CIA to close its network of "black
site" prisons and promised to shutter the detention camp at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.

The Justice Department has seized and transported foreign drug lords,
terrorists and other high-profile fugitives to U.S. courtrooms when normal
extradition was not considered possible. The Supreme Court ruled in 1992
that such renditions, as the transfers are known, are permissible.

In 1997, for example, FBI agents in Pakistan captured Mir Aimal Kasi, who
was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, and returned him to Washington to
stand trial. Kasi was convicted of murder in the killing of two CIA
employees and was executed in Virginia in 2002.

Azar is hardly in the same league, but Talamona pointed out that "we take
very seriously criminal fraud against the United States government."

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