Germany Investigates Blackwater-CIA Report

[Watchman]

[B]Germany Investigates Blackwater-CIA Report[/B]
EUROPE NEWS
JANUARY 8, 2010, 2:02 P.M. ET

By DAVID CRAWFORD

BERLIN -- German authorities are investigating a published report that the Central Intelligence Agency conceived a plan with the Blackwater security firm to assassinate a man who allegedly helped fund the Sept. 11 hijackers in Hamburg.

The alleged plot was never carried out, but under certain circumstances planning a murder could be a crime under German law. A German parliamentary committee and Hamburg prosecutors said they had initiated separate investigations into the matter.

Details of the alleged plot appeared in an article about Blackwater founder Erik Prince published by Vanity Fair in its current issue; in the article, there was no suggestion that Mr. Prince was aware of the plan.

The report, citing a single anonymous source, said that Blackwater, acting under contract with the CIA, dispatched a team to Hamburg for several weeks at an unspecified date to organize the assassination of Mamoun Darkazanli, a dual Syrian-German national. The alleged plot was canceled, according to the Vanity Fair article, because of a "lack of political will" in Washington to order the execution.

A spokeswoman for the CIA declined to comment. Blackwater, recently renamed Xe, didn't return calls seeking comment. Through his lawyer, Mr. Darkazanli said he was "shocked," and the lawyer added that Germany's highest court had reviewed the evidence against Mr. Darkanzanli and ordered him released without trial.

A spokesman for the Hamburg state prosecutor said his office opened a preliminary investigation into an alleged "conspiracy to commit a crime." No suspects have been named or identified, the spokesman said. He added that the investigation must first determine whether any evidence exists for the crime of plotting a murder, and only then would prosecutors begin to look for alleged suspects.

The allegations have been widely reported in Germany in recent days, reigniting old fears among some German politicians that U.S. intelligence agencies don't respect German sovereignty and operate at will here. Such concerns could create tension in the U.S.-German relationship just as Washington is trying to persuade Germany and other allies to commit more troops to the war in Afghanistan, according to German political observers. The war faces strong popular opposition in Germany.

Wolfgang Bosbach, chairman of the Interior Committee in the German parliament, said he ordered a preliminary inquiry into the alleged assassination plot at the request of the Leftist Party. It is unclear whether the committee will launch a full parliamentary investigation. A spokesman for the Leftist Party, successor to the East German Communist Party, declined to comment.

The U.S. government has described Mr. Darkazanli as a suspected supporter of al Qaeda, according to a U.S. government list of alleged al Qaeda supporters submitted to the United Nations Security Council. Mr. Darkazanli remains on the U.N.'s so-called watch list of alleged al Qaeda and Taliban supporters.

The U.S. had pressed Germany in 1999 to place Mr. Darkazanli under closer observation by police and intelligence services, according to a senior German intelligence official. Washington later asked Germany to investigate whether Mr. Darkazanli provided financial support to some of the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to court records prepared for the trials of 9/11 suspects in Berlin and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Some of the evidence in the Berlin court records was provided by the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Mr. Darkazanli, who at the time ran an import-export business, has repeatedly denied any involvement in terrorism.

Hamburg prosecutors investigated Mr. Darkazanli after 9/11 as part of a larger investigation into the so-called Hamburg Cell, which provided logistical support and sent three pilots to lead the attacks in the U.S. German prosecutors investigated but didn't find evidence for an indictment. Spanish prosecutors who were conducting a parallel investigation indicted Mr. Darkazanli and ordered his arrest in October 2004 on charges of providing logistical support for the 9/11 attacks.

Mr. Darkazanli was taken into custody on the basis of the Spanish warrant, but Germany's highest court ordered him released in July 2005, when it denied the Spanish extradition request. Mr. Darkanzanli, 51 years old, remains a free man.