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Diamonds...Counterpoint....IIBy Dennis Lormel
With respect to Doug’s last post, I again question the context. I have not seen the Belgian Police Report that is referred to. The case that is referred to was not a terrorism case. Ossailly and Nassour were prosecuted on criminal charges. My understanding is that there was no mention of Al Qaeda or terrorism in either the report or the trial. The FBI dealt directly with Belgian investigators who were involved in that case. Again, they stated they had no evidence concerning Al Qaeda and diamonds. Others having information to the contrary just points to the number of inconsistencies this case presented. No other country in the world has linked Al Qaeda to diamonds. During the FBI investigation, FBI Legal Attaches were tasked to query their law enforcement and intelligence contacts about this matter. All responses were negative concerning the conflict diamond issue. During the time frame of the investigation, while still with the Bureau, I traveled to a number of countries and held meetings with a variety of law enforcement and intelligence executives. In every meeting, the conflict diamond matter was discussed. My counterparts were always dumbfounded by and had no information concerning the diamond allegations. The FBI reports demonstrate that the FBI did not rely on hearsay. Wherever possible, an investigation was conducted to attempt to corroborate statements. At the end of the process, the allegations could not be substantiated. I’m not going to comment about the information flow in other agencies other than to say, at the time this investigation was conducted, no other agency presented information to support the allegations. This matter rose to the National Security Counsel level in attempting to determine if any agency had information to support the diamond allegations.
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