>--- Original Message ---
>From: "michael pugliese" <debsian at pacbell.net>
>To: asdnet at igc.topica.com
>Date: 3/21/02 2:35:34 PM
>
Sidelight on the attorney, Jacques Verges, cited in this story below. Verges is on the team advising Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague. Michael Pugliese --- Original Message --->>>Date: 3/14/02 2:34:01 AM>>>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/12/MN192483.DTL>>>Swiss probe anti-U.S. neo-Nazi>Suspected financial ties to al Qaeda>>Jay Bushinsky, Chronicle Foreign Service>>Bern, Switzerland -- At the behest of President Bush, Swiss law authorities>are investigating an alliance between Islamic militants and European>neo-Nazis who have allegedly been providing financial support to Osama bin>Laden's al Qaeda network.>>Experts say Islamic militants and far-right movements -- a coalition they>call the Third Position -- share common hatreds: the United States and Jews.>>"Extremists manage to find ways to put aside their differences and find>common cause," Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said>recently.>>The central figure in the probe is Ahmed Huber, a 74-year-old Swiss convert>to Islam who says the "Zionist Israel lobby controls the U.S. government and>mass media and shapes U.S. policy.">>Nada Management, the Bern company Huber helps direct, has been singled out>publicly by President Bush.>>Huber, a gregarious and outspoken former journalist who spent three decades>covering the Swiss Parliament for a socialist newspaper, is a strong>supporter of Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) and such>extreme-right politicians as France's Jean-Marie Le Pen.>>Huber serves on the board of directors of Nada Management. Founded by a>Swiss Nazi and formerly known as al Taqwa Bank, the consulting and>management firm is part of the international al Taqwa group, which the>United States believes has long acted as a financial adviser to al Qaeda.>>"Al Taqwa is an association of offshore banks and financial management firms>that have helped al Qaeda shift money around the world," Bush said on Nov.>7. The U.S. government has frozen Huber's assets and is pressuring the Swiss>government to arrest him for his alleged role in the al Qaeda money network.>>Swiss investigators say Huber's travels on the Muslim lecture circuit in>Western Europe and North America brought him into contact with bin Laden's>followers. Huber has admitted to meeting with associates of the Saudi exile,>describing them as "discreet, well-educated, very intelligent people." But>he denies that Nada Management underwrites al Qaeda activities.>>During an interview in his study, lined with books and portraits and>photographs of Adolf Hitler, Richard Wagner, Ayatollah Khomeini, Haj Amin>al- Husseini (the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) and Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser,>Huber expressed his views to a Chronicle correspondent.>>"The U.S. is the ally of 15 million Jews against 1.3 billion Muslims; it is>allied with 5 million Israelis against 200 million Arabs," he said. "We will>bring down the Israel lobby and change foreign policy. We'll do it in>America. When it happens, you'll understand.">>Huber minimizes his role on Nada Management's board of directors, saying he>is a minor player who receives only $1,500 annually in compensation. He says>the company's sponsors are mostly wealthy Muslims from Malaysia and the>Persian Gulf states who specialize in projects "beneficial to Third World>countries -- like new roads, clinics, agricultural development.">>But Hansjuerg Mark Wiedmer, a spokesman for the Swiss attorney general,>disagrees. His office has been investigating Nada Management's activities in>Switzerland, Germany and the United States for the past six months.>>"There have been indications that al Taqwa could have been financing al>Qaeda," he said. "Since Sept. 11, we have been seeking criminal connections.>We had been on their trail before but did not have enough evidence to open>criminal proceedings. This has changed.">>Wiedmer says the data he has gathered have been made available to U.S.>authorities, but he specified that if charges are eventually filed, the>"culprits" will be tried in a Swiss court.>>Three other Nada Management board members have also been questioned by>Swiss, Italian and U.S. authorities: Youssef Nada, an Egyptian expatriate>who has Italian citizenship; Ali Himmat, a Syrian national; and Mohamed>Mansour, a Zurich resident.>>Nada lives in Campione d'Italia, a tiny Italian enclave and tax haven near>the southern Swiss city of Lugano. Three months ago, Campione police raided>Nada Management's local office and confiscated records and documents.>>The Nada Management board is assisted by a committee of Muslim scholars>headed by Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian linked to his country's>outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. The committee's purpose is to make sure Nada>conforms to Islamic doctrine such as a ban on interest rates.>>Huber's longtime Swiss nemesis is Jean-Claude Buhrer, a correspondent for>the prominent French daily Le Monde. Buhrer recently cited a column>published in Morgenstern, a newspaper read by surviving former members of>Germany's wartime Waffen SS, in which Huber said Muslims and Nazis were>involved in the same fight.>>"This is tantamount to a marriage between the swastika and the (Islamic)>crescent," wrote Buhrer.>>Buhrer also assailed Huber for denying the scope of the Nazi Holocaust and>for being a faithful disciple of Francois Genoud, a Swiss lawyer who funded>Hitler and served as a German agent during World War II.>>After the war, Genoud underwrote the clandestine Odessa organization, which,>>according to famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, enabled such notorious Nazi>fugitives as Adolf Eichmann, Alois Brunner and Klaus Barbie to escape to>South America and the Middle East.>>Authorities believe Genoud founded al Taqwa Bank and allocated its resources>to support international terrorists such as Vladimir Ilich Ramirez, alias>Carlos the Jackal, and bin Laden.>>Genoud committed suicide in 1996, shortly after Jewish leaders and Swiss>banking officials announced an unprecedented agreement to set up a>commission to examine secret bank and government files to search for funds>deposited in Switzerland by Holocaust victims, according to Buhrer.>>Over the years, Genoud paid French attorney Jacques Verges to defend Ramirez>and Barbie and also covered the legal expenses of Eichmann before an Israeli>court in 1961. He also subsidized Khomeini's prolonged exile in France when>Iran was governed by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.>>Genoud's admiration for Khomeini is shared by Huber. "'He was a fantastic>man," Huber said.