Jon Boone / The Guardian & Mumtaz Alvi / The News – 2013-11-28 23:40:39
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/cia-officer-pakistan-imran-khan-party
CIA’s Most Senior Officer in Pakistan ‘Unmasked’ by Imran Khan’s Party
Jon Boone / The Guardian
ISLAMABAD (November 27, 2013) — The political party led by the former cricket star Imran Khan claims to have blown the cover of the CIA’s most senior officer in Pakistan as part of an increasingly high-stakes campaign against US drone strikes.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party named a man it claimed was head of the CIA station in Islamabad in a letter to police demanding he be nominated as one of the people responsible for a drone strike on 21 November, which killed five militants including senior commanders of the Haqqani Network.
John Brennan, the CIA director, was also nominated as an “accused person” for murder and “waging war against Pakistan”.
The US embassy said it could not comment but was looking into the matter. The CIA spokesman Dean Boyd would not confirm the station chief’s name and declined to immediately comment, AP reported.
If his identity is confirmed it will be the second time anti-drone campaigners have unmasked a top US spy in Pakistan.
In 2010 another CIA station chief, Jonathan Banks, was named in criminal proceedings initiated after a drone strike. Banks was forced to leave the country.
As with the Banks case, questions will be raised about how the PTI came to know the identity of the top US intelligence official in the country.
Although nearly all foreign spies in Pakistan use diplomatic cover stories to hide their occupation, many, including station chiefs, are declared to the country’s domestic spy agency.
The letter signed by the PTI spokeswoman Shireen Mazari demanded the named agent be prevented from leaving the country so that he could be arrested. The PTI said it hoped he would reveal “through interrogation” the names of the remote pilots who operated the drone.
“CIA station chief is not a diplomatic post, therefore he does not enjoy any diplomatic immunity and is within the bounds of domestic laws of Pakistan,” the letter said.
The accusation comes at a time when drones have once again become a matter of intense controversy in Pakistan.
The country’s interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar, denounced a drone strike in early November. Although the attack killed the much hated chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, Nisar said it had wrecked the government’s efforts to hold peace talks with militant groups.
And it infuriated Khan, who has built much of his political platform around opposition to drones, which he claims are largely responsible for the upsurge of domestic terrorism in Pakistan in recent years – a suggestion disputed by many experts.
The 21 November strike was even more provocative as it was one of the first ever strikes outside the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where nearly all attacks by the unmanned aircraft have taken place in the past.
The attack on a religious seminary associated with the Haqqani Network was in Hangu, an area in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province where Khan’s PTI leads a coalition government.
Khan responded with a massive rally in the provincial capital of Peshawar and ordered PTI activists to block vehicles carrying supplies to Nato troops in Afghanistan.
However, party workers have struggled to identify Nato cargo amid all the sealed containers plying the roads to Afghanistan. The exercise has received no support from the national government and the police have tried to stop PTI workers blocking lorries.
PTI Nominates CIA Officials in FIR for Committing Murder
Mumtaz Alvi / The News
ISLAMABAD (November 28, 2013) — The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Wednesday moved the police to nominate US CIA Director John O Brennan and his station chief here, Craig Osth, as accused of ‘committing the gross offences of murder and waging a war against Pakistan.’
PTI Central Information Secretary Dr. Shireen Mazari wrote to the station house officer Tal, Hangu for inclusion of the CIA boss and senior official in the FIR, already registered by the party about the recent Hangu drone strike.
She held a media conference here at the party’s central secretariat on the matter along with other senior PTI office-bearers.The PTI information secretary called for initiation of cases under the Pakistan Penal Code and the Anti-Terrorist Act against the US CIA spy Craig, who, she alleged, was running a big spying network from the American Embassy here.
Dr. Mazari continued that the government should include name of the Islamabad-based CIA station chief in the exit control list. On this count, she referred to ex-station chief of CIA Jonathon Banks, who had allegedly fled Pakistan after the drone attacks in 2010.
She added Craig was facilitating the drone strikes through GPS equipment and the recent drone attack on Hangu was one of them. She contended that the CIA station chief was involved in waging a war in Pakistan and creating a law and order situation. It is unusual that a leading political party, which leads a coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has gone public against CIA and its top operative in Pakistan.
This development takes place a day after Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak wrote a letter to the prime minister calling for suspension of Nato supplies to and from Afghanistan via Pakistan and proposed convening of a meeting by the federal government to thrash out a strategy on how to stop drones inside Pakistan.
In the letter, a copy of which has been sent to inspector general of police Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and DPO Hangu, she says:
“I, the undersigned would like to record my statement on behalf of my party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf as its Central Information Secretary wherein I would like to nominate the accused persons behind the drone strike that occurred on 21-11-2013 in the vicinity of your police station and within the sovereign territory of Pakistan, and against which you have already filed an FIR No 555 dated 21.11.2013 against unknown individuals.
“It is through this statement that I would like to nominate the US clandestine agency CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Station Chief in Islamabad, namely Craig Osth and CIA Director John O. Brennan for committing the gross offences of murder and waging war against Pakistan as indicated in the FIR lodged in your police station.
“It has further come to my knowledge that Craig Osth is running an illegal clandestine spying operation throughout Pakistan but specifically in KP and annexed Tribal Areas, wherein Craig Osth and his allies (names not known yet) throw a GPS (Global Positioning System) device at a targeted house/car and the drone (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), which is remotely controlled from undisclosed location, strikes at the target. In the instant case it was Craig Osth and his clandestine network which threw a GPS device on behest of the accused at the Madressah in Tal and further ordered/conspired the missile strike, which killed and injured a large number of those present including children.
“It is pertinent to mention here that the Peshawar High Court has already declared such drone strikes illegal and violation of Pakistani and International laws vide its judgment dated 09-11-13 titled Foundation for Fundamental Rights Vs Federation of Pakistan.
“It is further stated that the names of the remote pilot of said drone and other involved is not known at the moment but can be ascertained through interrogation of Craig Osth, and/or the undersigned tends to inform the police on knowledge of the same.
“Craig Osth is currently residing and operating from the United States Embassy situated in Diplomatic Enclave in Islamabad, which is a clear violation of diplomatic norms and laws as a foreign mission cannot be used for any criminal activity within a sovereign state. CIA Station Chief is not a diplomatic post therefore he does not enjoy any diplomatic immunity and is within the bounds of domestic laws of Pakistan.
It is a fact that the nominated accused Craig Osth is not a Pakistani citizen, but under Pakistan Penal Code he is clearly subject to the jurisdiction of Pakistan. Under Section 3 of Pakistan Penal Code it is clearly stated that:
‘Any person liable, by any Pakistan Law, to be tried for an offence committed beyond Pakistan shall be dealt with according to the provision of this code for any act committed beyond Pakistan in the same manner as if such act had been committed within Pakistan.’
Furthermore, Section 2 of Pakistan Penal Code states: ‘Every person shall be liable to punishment under this code and not otherwise for every act or omission contrary to the provisions thereof, of which he shall be guilty within Pakistan.’
“Every person” has been explained by the superior courts to include all persons without limitation and irrespective of nationality, allegiance, rank, status, caste, colour or creed [PLD 1958 SC (Ind.) 115].
The undersigned believes that Craig Osth is guilty of committing an offence u/s 302, 319, 109, 121 PPC and/or u/s 7 ATA or any other penal clause which might be attracted. The undersigned is further concerned that the accused Craig Osth might try to avoid the course of law and run away from the country, therefore it is requested that Ministry of Interior be contacted to put his name on ECL (exit control list).
It is further stated that the undersigned will name others who were involved in the drone strike that occurred on 21.11.2013 in Tal, on any further information.
The AP adds: CIA spokesman Dean Boyd would not confirm the Islamabad station chiefs name and declined to immediately comment.
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9905a/copyright/brazilciadea.html
Craig Peters Osth Linked to CIA Scandal in Brazil
CIA, DEA, Operated Without Oversight in Brazil
Carlos Castiho / InterPress Service & Albion Monitor
RIO DE JANEIRO (May 31, 1999) — The military aide to Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso admitted that the government did not have complete control over US intelligence agents operating in Brazil.
The military aide, General Alberto Cardoso, said the lack of control was only transitory. But he failed to explain just why the CIA and DEA agents enjoyed such freedom of action here. Nor did the general explain how the government planned to resolve the problem.
The actions of US agents in Brazil hit the headlines after a local magazine, Carta Capital, reported early this month that the CIA had bugged President Cardoso’s private telephones two years ago.
According to the weekly, Cardoso’s phones were bugged in search of inside information regarding the negotiations on the installation of a sophisticated air surveillance system aimed at detecting drug trafficking operations in Brazil’s Amazon region.
The project, known by its acronym SIVAM, sparked heated debate due to allegations of corruption among high-level military officers and government officials, denounced by executives of the US company Raytheon, interested in holding onto a deal worth an estimated one billion dollars.
The connections between the CIA, DEA, the military and drug traffickers returned to the Brazilian political agenda after the discovery, in the last week of April, that Brazilian air force officers were involved in shipping cocaine to Europe in military airplanes.
One of the main suspects in that case is Lieutenant-Colonel Paulo Sergio Oliveira, one of the officers in charge of air surveillance over the Amazon basin, where SIVAM operates.
Oliveira and three other officers were identified after a suitcase carrying 33 kilos of Colombian cocaine was found April 19 on a Hercules air force plane, shortly before it was to take off to Las Palmas, on Spain’s Canary islands.
The entire operation, that culminated in the interception of the drugs, was coordinated by US agents — which annoyed Brazil’s military brass and gave rise to friction with the US Embassy, according to the local press.
US adviser Craig Peters Osth was identified by the magazine Carta Capital as the head of the CIA in Brazil.
The Hercules airplane incident remains shrouded in mystery, despite parallel probes launched by the military and parliament.
Although the president’s aide-de-camp denied that the DEA and CIA had listened in on Cardoso’s phone conversations, he acknowledged that US agents enjoyed ”too much freedom” to move about and operate in Brazil.
The general said the Brazilian government had more control over CIA agents than those working for the DEA.
According to Deputy Jose Genoino of the opposition leftist Workers Party, the DEA has at least 12 agents working secretly in Brazil.
Foreign Minister Luis Felipe Lampreia and Justice Minister Renan Calheiros will be summoned before parliament this month to account for the latest episode in the complex saga involving business, narco-trafficking, espionage and corruption.
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