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OCTOBER SURPRISE, Part 4
Clinton shields Iran
from U.S. justice
Blocks restitution to families of
victims
murdered by state-sponsored
terrorists
A Special Investigative Report from
the Western Journalism Center with
the assistance of the Iran Brief
Editor's note: The Clinton
administration is hoping to conclude a
"package deal" with the government
of Iran in time for the November
elections that would resolve 20 years
of hostility between the United States
and Iran, lead to renewed diplomatic
relations, and give President Clinton a
much-sought-after "legacy" in foreign
affairs, according to intermediaries
directly involved in the negotiations
and former U.S. officials.
As reported in WorldNetDaily the
deal, if successful, would restore
complete commercial ties between the
two countries, allowing U.S. oil
companies to invest in Iran and to buy
Iranian crude oil while allowing
President Clinton and Vice President
Gore to claim credit for "resolving" the
current oil crisis, all in time for the
elections.
Today's report documents how, in
pursuing this mega-backroom deal,
Clinton has become Iran's best
advocate in the United States,
protecting Iran's assets and shielding
Iran's leaders from prosecution -- even
at the expense of betraying the
American family of a terrorism victim
he once promised personally to help.
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
© 2000, Western Journalism Center
On April 9, 1995, a suicide bomber
drove a van packed with explosives
into an Israeli bus traveling from the
Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon to a
resort community in the Gaza Strip,
killing 8 persons and wounding 50
more.
One of the victims was a 20-year-old
junior from Brandeis University, Alisa
Michelle Flatow, who hailed from
West Orange, N.J.
Like many young Americans, Alisa
Flatow was taking part of her junior
year abroad. She telephoned her
father, Stephen Flatow, shortly before
boarding the #36 bus to Gaza, to ask
whether he thought it would be safe
for her to travel to a Jewish settlement
that abutted Palestinian territories.
After listening to her plans, he said he
believed that the Israeli government
would not provide civilian bus service
unless it were safe to do so, and
encouraged her to join her friends at
the Gaza resort.
The bomb hit Alisa's bus at 12:05 pm
local time. Her father heard on the
radio back in New Jersey a scant 30
minutes later that an Israeli bus had
been attacked in Gaza, and
immediately began trying to reach his
daughter.
When the hospital where she was
being treated for severe head injuries
confirmed that was she one of the
victims, he took the first plane to
Israel. Stephen Flatow watched his
daughter die at the Soroka Medical
Center in Israel the next day.
Alisa's murderer was a member of
Palestinian Islamic Jihad-Shiqaqi
faction, a terrorist organization that
was funded and directed by the
government of the Islamic Republic of
Iran.
In a public statement issued hours
after the bus bombing in Gaza, the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility for the killings.
Ambassador Philip Wilcox, the State
Department coordinator for
counterterrorism, told Flatow in July
1996 that the government of Iran
provided approximately $2 million
annually to the PIJ in support of its
terrorist activities.
In fact, independent Iran expert
Patrick Clawson pointed out that the
Iranian government had a line item in
its publicly-approved budget that
provided $100 million each year to a
variety of terrorist organizations
seeking to "liberate Palestine" and
"struggle against Zionist occupation."
Among the groups were Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the
Lebanese Hezbollah group.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad was led
by a Gaza physician, Fathi al-Shiqaqi,
whom the Israelis knew well. He was
among a group of several hundred
Palestinian activists expelled by the
Israelis to the no-man's land between
the Israeli and Lebanese borders in
1984. Shiqaqi subsequently gravitated
to South Florida, then disappeared.
In October 1993, an Arabic-language
weekly published in London, Al
Sharq al-Awsat, reported that Shiqaqi
had met in Tehran with Ayatollah Ali
Khamene'i, the supreme leader of the
Islamic Republic of Iran, who
promised to increase funding for his
group if he would launch terrorist
attacks against Israel.
Quoting "informed sources in
Tehran," the paper alleged that
Ayatollah Khamene'i had "decided to
personally take over responsibility for
the issue," and had urged Shiqaqi to
launch a "violent struggle" against
Israel with Iran's support.
Israel has earned a reputation for
refusing to take terrorist attacks
against Jews lying down. After a PLO
hit squad murdered Israeli athletes at
the1972 Munich Olympics, Israel's
intelligence service, Mossad, set up a
special unit that tracked down the
killers until every one of them had
been found -- and assassinated.
Six months after the fatal suicide
attack against Alisa Flatow's bus, a
mysterious 43-year man carrying a
Libyan passport in the name Ibrahim
Shawesh was gunned down outside
his hotel in Valetta, the capital of the
Mediterranean island nation of Malta.
Three days later, on Oct. 29, 1995, the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued a
statement in Gaza acknowledging
that the victim was actually Fathi
al-Shiqaqi, who had been traveling
under an assumed identity.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
could scarcely conceal his satisfaction
when the news leaked out. Shiqaqi
"was at the head of a murderous
terror organization," he told reporters,
and "is not a man whose existence any
civilized system could tolerate." Rabin
added: "He had many enemies, and if
in fact he is the man who was killed, I
certainly will not be sorry about it."
But Iran's rampage of terror did not
stop at Shiqaqi's death.
Early on the morning of Feb. 25, 1996,
two American graduate students,
25-year-old Matthew Eisenfeld and
22-year-old Sarah Rachel Duker,
boarded the #18 bus in Jerusalem,
setting off for a day trip to visit the
spectacular desert temples in Petra,
Jordan.
Also on the bus was a young
Palestinian, Majid Wardah, who was
carrying a travel bag packed with
explosives.
At approximately 6:45 am, the bus
came to a stop on Yafo Street in
Jerusalem and the explosives in
Wardah's bag went off, killing Sarah
Duker, Matthew Eisenfeld, the young
Palestinian and many Israelis on
board.
The Palestinian group Hamas
immediately claimed responsibility
for the attack, which it said was aimed
at sabotaging the Arab-Israeli peace
process.
Hamas acknowledged in public
statements that it received $15 million
per month from the government of
the Islamic Republic of Iran, money it
used to support terrorist operations as
well as social welfare activities in
Gaza.
Wardah's cousin, Mohammad
Wardah, was subsequently arrested by
PLO security officers in Gaza and
condemned to a life sentence. In an
interview with U.S. television
reporters for CBS' 60 Minutes, he
bragged that he was responsible for
enticing Majid Wardah to carry out
the suicide bombing on the #18 bus.
"I took his pulse. I asked him how
much he loved his land. How much
he believed in paradise. His answers
were positive. So I asked him whether
he wanted to be involved in an
operation," Wardah said.
Hamas and PIJ carried out more
suicide attacks as the Israeli elections
approached, including a second strike
against a #18 bus in Jerusalem on
March 3, 1996 that killed 18 persons,
and an attack in Tel Aviv the
following day that killed 12 and
wounded 105 others. Altogether,
some 57 persons were murdered in
the suicide attacks that spring.
An official statement carried by Iran's
state-run news agency on March 4,
1996, called the blasts divine
retribution.
"Israel, the only state in the world to
be created by terrorism and brutal use
of force, is now tasting its own
medicine. The divine retribution on
those who spread corruption and
injustice on the earth will be severe,"
the statement read.
The IRNA comment, and other
statements in support of the bombings
from Iranian government officials and
leading clerics, prompted Israeli
Prime Minister Shimon Peres to
accuse Iran of seeking to sabotage
Israel's elections.
In an oft-quoted speech at the
anti-terrorism conference at the
Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh on
March 13, 1996, Peres said: "This
terrorism is not anonymous. It has a
name, it has an address. It has a bank
account, it has an infrastructure, it has
networks camouflaged as charity
organizations. It is spearheaded by a
country -- Iran."
After the elections, which Peres lost to
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu,
the Israeli security forces arrested a
Palestinian named Hassan Salameh,
who confessed to being the
mastermind behind the March 1996
series of suicide bombings.
In an interview with 60 Minutes,
portions of which aired on Oct. 5,
1997, Salameh described how after
joining Hamas he went to Sudan for
indoctrination, then to Syria, where
he met Iranian handlers who flew
him to an Iranian airbase near Tehran
for special training in intelligence
methods and the use of explosives.
Following his training, he was sent
back to Gaza with orders from Iran to
carry out a series of suicide bombings
in Israel.
Striking back in the courts
That second wave of terrorist
bombings in Israel, where other
young Americans like his daughter
were killed, sparked Stephen Flatow
into action.
No longer alone in his grief, Flatow
contacted his representatives in
Congress, Democratic Sen. Frank
Lautenberg and Republican Rep. Jim
Saxton. As evidence of Iran's
involvement in the attacks began to
emerge, they helped push through an
amendment to the 1996 Antiterrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act,
which allowed victims of
state-sponsored terrorist acts to seek
redress in U.S. courts.
The new measure lifted the immunity
of foreign governments proven to be
state sponsors of terrorist acts that
killed Americans. It allowed families
of the victims to sue them in U.S.
courts and to attach their assets in
compensation. Not only were the
recent attacks fresh in everyone's
mind, but it was an election year. The
bill passed without a hitch in April
1996 and was signed into law by
President Clinton.
Not long after the signing, Clinton
appeared in public with Flatow at a
fund-raiser at the Plaza Hotel in New
York. Flatow still recalls Clinton's
body language, which oozed
sympathy and support.
"I got the right hand in a handshake,
with the left hand at shoulder level on
my arm. I figured that was pretty
good," Flatow recalls. "I had the
distinct impression that I had the full
weight of the United States behind
me."
Armed with Public Law 104-132 and
Clinton's personal benediction, the
Flatow family filed suit in U.S. District
court in Washington, D.C., against the
Islamic Republic of Iran.
At first, they received excellent
cooperation from the administration.
On June 8, 1997, the State Department
agreed to serve process on the Iranian
government through the Swiss
embassy in Tehran, which has
represented U.S. interests in Iran since
the hostage crisis.
By all accounts, the administration
was expecting the Iranians to respond.
But when three months went by
without a word from Tehran, District
Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth
entered a default judgement against
the Iranian government.
On March 11, 1998, he condemned the
Iranian government to pay the
Flatows $247.5 million in penalties
and damages. It was the largest
damage award against a foreign
government in history.
Stephen Flatow remembers that he
was floored.
"In 1996, when we started, we thought
it would take anywhere from seven to
ten years to get through the courts,"
he said in an interview. "Instead, the
Iranians defaulted. It surprised the
hell out of the United States, and it
surprised the hell out of us."
Flatow even began planning how he
could use the money to set up
charities to sponsor young people
wanting to study in Israel, his fondest
dream.
Not really knowing where to begin in
collecting on the settlement, Flatow
and his lawyers asked Lautenberg to
write a letter to the State Department
on April 24, 1998, requesting
assistance in locating Iranian
government assets in the United
States. The June 10, 1998, reply they
received from Assistant Secretary of
State Barbara Larkin was baffling. But
they had not counted on the duplicity
of Bill Clinton.
"[T]here are currently no Iranian
assets held by or under the control of
the United States Government which
could be used to pay claims against
Iran," Larkin wrote. "Frozen Iranian
assets in the United States, with the
exception of a small amount of assets
that are at issue in arbitration before
the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, were
released at the time the hostages were
freed in 1981, pursuant to the Algiers
Accords."
As Flatow and his attorneys would
learn subsequently, this was simply
not true. Larkin went on to note that
the Iranian government was
expressing second thoughts about its
refusal to take part in the court
proceedings.
"The Iranian Government's Agent to
the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The
Hague recently approached the
United States to ask about the status
of the Flatow litigation, and Iran's
options," she wrote. "We informed
Iran ... that the United States cannot
represent a foreign government in
U.S. courts and that Iran should
obtain counsel and enter an
appearance in the case."
Contrary to Larkin's written
statement, however, the Clinton
administration began to represent the
Iranian government before Judge
Lamberth's court, in an increasingly
brazen and inexplicable manner.
On June 26, 1998, the Justice
Department appeared in Judge
Lamberth's court to oppose subpoenas
from the Flatow family lawyers to the
Treasury and State Departments,
seeking information on Iranian
diplomatic properties in the United
States. Under the Shah, Iran's embassy
parties in Washington were
legendary.
Following the break in diplomatic
relations in 1980, the ambassador's
mansion on Massachusetts Avenue as
well as several consular properties in
Bethesda, Md., were rented out by the
State Department, with the proceeds
going into a blocked account with the
Nations Bank in Washington, D.C.
Justice Department lawyers objected
when the Flatow lawyers sought
information on how much money was
in that account.
Ten days later, Judge Lamberth
attached those properties and
instructed the U.S. Marshall to notify
the occupants that ownership was
being transferred to the Flatow family
as a result of the court's decision. But
before the U.S. Marshall could execute
the order, the State Department legal
adviser ordered him by phone not to
serve the writ of attachment, claiming
the properties were on an "exempt
list" kept secret by the Department of
State.
"This is when the government began
to defend the Islamic Republic," says
Flatow family attorney Thomas
Fortune Fay. "We were naive. We
thought they might avoid a question
or two, but not that they would lie.
We were wrong."
At the next court hearing, in early
July 1998, the Justice Department
showed up with 14 lawyers.
"They filled up one whole side of the
courtroom," Fay recalls. "Clearly,
protecting the assets of the
government of the Islamic Republic of
Iran had become more important to
the administration than defending the
rights of American citizens to justice."
On July 28, Justice Department
attorney Jay Bhambhani cried foul:
"Your unfounded accusation that we
are lying to protect the assets of a
terrorist government is far from [the
truth] ... We are trying to protect U.S.
national interests ... including U.S.
treaty obligations" and U.S. foreign
policy interests, he said.
The legal wrangling had just begun.
In court hearings and in negotiating
sessions at the State Department,
Treasury and Justice, the Flatow
attorneys pressed the administration
to produce documents that would
help them identify Iranian assets in
the United States. After all, that is
what the president had promised
Stephen Flatow during the 1996
election campaign.
Eventually, the Flatows went back to
Congress, and in October 1998 got an
amendment added to the
appropriations bill that required the
State Department and the Treasury to
assist in locating the assets of foreign
nations found guilty of
state-sponsored terrorist acts that
killed Americans.
To ensure passage, they included
standard language allowing the
president to waive the requirements
of the bill "in the interest of national
security."
In an extraordinary move, Clinton
exercised that waiver on Oct. 21, 1998,
in Presidential Determination No.
99-1, "Determination to Waive
Requirements Related to Blocked
Property of Terrorist-List States."
In that document, President Clinton
acknowledged for the first time in
writing that his administration was
engaged in a secret diplomatic
overture to the Islamic Republic of
Iran, which required him to protect
Iran's assets in the United States.
It was a stunning admission, which
until now has gone virtually
unnoticed in the press.
Next: Iran claims the U.S. is sitting on
$20 billion of its money, and it wants
that money back. While surely an
exaggeration, the Iranian government
has extensive financial and real estate
holdings in the United States, which
have become the subject of intense
political wrangling.
Read Part 1: Clinton, Iran plan
election-eve coup.
Read Part 2: Secret spy deal: U.S.,
Iran, Israel.
Read Part 3: Clinton sought dirt
on W's dad.
Editor's note: The Western Journalism
Center is a non-profit, tax-exempt
organization that sponsors
independent investigative reporting
projects into government fraud,
waste, corruption and abuse. The
charity was founded by Joseph Farah,
now editor and chief executive officer
of WorldNetDaily.com, but is an
entirely autonomous company.
If you would like to support more
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