DIRTY MONEY

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced a host of grave new allegations on Friday when police and the Justice Ministry said they suspect him of billing multiple donors and organizations for the same overseas trips over several years, and using the excess - tens of thousands of dollars - to pay for personal flights abroad for himself and family members.
One source told The Jerusalem Post that Olmert had amassed around $78,000 in his private account from the money he secured to cover his legitimate travel expenses.
A joint statement released by the police and state prosecutors on Friday said that Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz gave police the green light four weeks ago to widen the Talansky affair criminal investigation against Olmert, after evidence came to light of offenses related to Olmert's travels.
The investigation was originally opened to probe the cash-filled envelopes the prime minister is alleged to have received from New York businessman Morris Talansky.
The new suspicions center on Olmert's tenure as Jerusalem mayor (1993-2003) and as minister of industry, trade and labor (2003-2005), during which time police say he sought donations to cover the same work-related flights from several organizations simultaneously - including Yad Vashem, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Soldiers Welfare Association and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor.
After securing the requested funds, the Rishon Tours travel agency - used by Olmert to manage the funds and flights - sent receipts to each donating party, giving them the impression they had paid for all of Olmert's legitimate costs, when in fact only a small portion of the money was used to cover the travel expenses, police said.
The rest of the money was "transferred to a special private account in Olmert's name managed by the travel agency. Those funds were used to pay for private overseas trips made by Mr. Olmert and his family members," police said.
Olmert was confronted with the new allegations by National Fraud Unit detectives who questioned him at his Jerusalem residence on Friday, police said, adding that they had not released the new details to avoid giving the prime minister a chance to prepare answers in advance.
Amir Dan, a spokesman for the prime minister, said police were trying to create a diversion after realizing that the Talansky testimony was worthless, adding that the new suspicions were based on "old material that police received three months ago."
Dan added that Olmert's travel affairs had been managed in an "organized and transparent manner. It's not clear why police felt it was so urgent [to release the allegations] other than as an attempt to distract the public's attention away from Talansky's testimony."
Friday's questioning session was marked by a "business-like and appropriate atmosphere," Dan said, adding that "the ground did not shake and the sky did not fall" when police presented their new suspicions to the prime minister.
"All of these questions were based on detailed notes made in Mr. Ehud Olmert's bureau during his various roles and which were fully passed on to the Israel Police three months ago," Dan said.
"The questions the prime minister faced [on Friday] could have been asked of each Knesset member, minister or mayor in the State of Israel who was invited by organizations around the world and was financed by them," he added.
A key witness in the widened police investigation is Rachel Rizby-Raz, who worked as Olmert's travel coordinator during his tenure as industry, trade and labor minister, and who now serves as his adviser on Diaspora issues.
In a statement released on Saturday night, Rizby-Raz said she was "pained by the lies that appear in the media on a daily basis."
Olmert, she said, "didn't take a shekel for himself and didn't use the public's money for his family's needs."
She said that the prime minister, whom she valued and respected, was a "wonderful, warm, caring and humane person with amazing abilities" who has devoted the past 35 years "to further the interests of the state."
Rizby-Raz said that she had cooperated fully with police investigators. "I am not suspected of any offense and I did not break any law," she said.
"Regretfully, unlike other sources who leak ceaselessly, I cannot give details on the investigation, protect the prime minister and my good name or tell the truth, for fear that I would be accused of disrupting the investigation.
"I am saddened by the fact that in my country, what a person says in the interrogation room appears in the newspapers the next day, and no one thinks that's wrong," she said. "I am saddened by the fact that in my country you can butcher a man in the town square without trial or [giving him] the presumption of innocence - and everyone leans back to enjoy the show."
Speaking on Channel 2 Saturday evening, Navot Tel Tsur, a lawyer representing Olmert, said police had a "clear agenda to topple the prime minister before reaching the stage of an indictment."
Tel Tsur said police had crossed the line on Friday by releasing the new details, adding that the National Fraud Unit was afraid that Talansky would be robbed of all credibility during his cross-examination on Thursday.
"The reports accompanying the investigation have the markings of a vendetta, of an attempt to overthrow the prime minister without a trial. I would be very surprised if the public would be prepared to accept that," Tel Tsur said.
Police said the investigation was at an advanced stage and would soon be completed.

TRUE OR FALSE?

Iran's missile test this week did not demonstrate any new capabilities, according to a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence, and the test may not have included one of the longer-range missiles Iran claims was among those launched.

Iranian officials claimed the tests Wednesday and Thursday demonstrated a new variant of the Shahab missile that had a range of 1,250 miles. Such a missile would put much of the Middle East in striking distance, including Israel — as close as 650 miles from Iran — as well as Turkey, Pakistan and the Arabian peninsula.

The tests drew immediate criticism from U.S. officials. In Eastern Europe during the launches, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the missile tests underscored the need for a U.S. missile shield in the region.
But an independent national security blog, ArmsControlWonk.com, Thursday analyzed video footage of the launch posted by the Iranian government. It determined the missiles were identical to a version of the Shahab missile first demonstrated in Iran in 1998 that has a known range of 746 miles.

In a post called "Same old Boring Shahab 3," it compared the diameter of the missile to its length and found it to be identical to the 1998 version.

Unless the Iranians built a larger missile with the same length to width ratio, dramatically improved the thrust of the rocket or decreased its internal structural mass, the missile could not achieve the range Iran claimed it did. Otherwise, it is the same knockoff of North Korea's Nodong-1, according to the blog.


Iran falsely claimed in February that it launched a two-stage missile that later analysis determined to be a one-stage Shahab missile, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington, D.C. arms control advocacy think tank.

"Iran frequently exaggerates the capability of its missiles, and it appears it is continuing that tradition with this week's tests," said David Wright, co-director of the Union's Global Security Program.

The U.S. official familiar with the intelligence said the Iranian tests involved eight or nine missiles — most fired on Wednesday and one more several hours later early Thursday. It was a mix of missiles ranging from medium-range to close-range battlefield rockets. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss preliminary analysis, said the exact models had not yet been decisively determined by U.S. intelligence.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the test is being taken seriously, and was an attempt to destabilize the region.

"We don't believe this exercise to have been an illusion," he said Friday. Still, he added, "They were not testing new technologies or capabilities, but rather firing off old equipment in an attempt to intimidate their neighbors and escalate tension in the region. That is not the way to win the trust and confidence of the international community."
Tehran staged the missile tests as a show of strength in response to a recent Israeli military exercise.

An Iranian government photograph showing a cluster of missile launches was apparently altered to add a fourth missile lifting off from a desert range.
"There's no doubt the photo was doctored," said Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation Program for the London-based International Institute For Strategic Studies.
The image, posted Wednesday on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Web site, showed four missiles moments after launch, leaving trails of glowing exhaust and clouds of billowing brown dust.
U.S. officials have also raised questions about the video footage, saying it looks remarkably similar to previous tests.

FREE, COLOMBIA IS FREE!

DANGEROUS STARS

The detention of four retired high-ranking generals yesterday along with dozens of others has extended an investigation into an illegal organization to include two failed coup attempts allegedly devised by currently retired force commanders against the current government in 2004.

Twenty-one people, including two former army commanders, a journalist and the leader of a business group, were detained in operations in the cities of Ankara, İstanbul, Antalya and Trabzon yesterday morning as part of an investigation into a powerful and illegal organization suspected of plotting to overthrow the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government.
Retired Gen. Şener Eruygur, retired Gen. Hurşit Tolon, retired Gen. İlker Güven and former Gendarmerie General Command Intelligence Department head Levent Ersöz as well as Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO) Chairman Sinan Aygün and the Ankara bureau chief of the radically secularist Cumhuriyet daily Mustafa Balbay were among those taken into police custody early in the morning.

The four generals are being mentioned as potential accomplices in a diary allegedly kept by a former navy commander detailing failed plans to overthrow the AK Party.
Eruygur was a leading figure among the organizers of so-called republican rallies held ahead of July elections last year in protest of the AK Party government. His name was also mentioned in documents leaked to the press proving the existence of two failed coup attempts called Ayışığı and Sarıkız, plotted when Eruygur was still in the army. Tolon was known for making frequent appearances at symposiums and conferences organized by ultranationalists. This is the first time generals of such high rank are being detained in Turkey.
Eruygur is also head of the secularist Atatürkist Thought Association (ADD), named after the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Birol Başaran, former head of the ADD's Kadıköy chapter and chairman of the Nationalist Businessmen's Association (USİAD), and ADD Kadıköy's current Chairman Coşkun Gürel, a former colonel, were also detained.
The İstanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office ordered the detentions, reports said. The police also carried out searches at the Ankara office of Cumhuriyet, the ADD's İstanbul office and ATO's headquarters in the capital.
The editor-in-chief of the ultranationalist Tercüman daily, Ufuk Büyükçelebi, and writer and strategy expert Erol Mütercimler were also detained in yesterday's raids. The dailies' offices were searched by police teams looking for former AK Party deputy Turhan Çömez, also on suspicion of links to Ergenekon.
A newspaper had reported yesterday morning that Çömez was out of the country to study English abroad.
The seven individuals detained in Ankara, including three of the generals, ATO Chairman Aygun and journalist Balbay, two detained in Antalya and one person detained in Trabzon were brought to İstanbul in the evening for interrogation.
The Ergenekon investigation under which yesterday's detentions were made began in the summer of 2007 when a house filled with arms and ammunition in İstanbul's Ümraniye district was uncovered. As the investigation expanded, a structure suspected of responsibility for a number of politically motivated murders, including that of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January 2007, and attacks at newspapers and judicial entities to foment chaos and engineer a military takeover. Forty-nine people including former members of the army, journalists, drug lords and academics have been detained in the operation so far.
Analysts say the Ergenekon group is part of the shadowy "deep state," code for hard-line nationalists in Turkey's security forces and state bureaucracy ready to take the law into their own hands to accomplish their own agenda.
Meanwhile, reports yesterday said the chief prosecutor on the Ergenekon case, Zekeriya Öz, said he was very close to completing his indictment and expected to submit it to a court by the end of this week.
The investigation has significantly increased political tension in the country. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had previously said a closure case against his party on charges of anti-secularism was a response to the government's determination in the Ergenekon operation, while others have claimed that the government is using the Ergenekon investigation to suppress its opponents.
Cüneyt Arcayürek, a columnist at the Cumhuriyet daily, held a press conference at noon yesterday to comment on the Ankara bureau chief's detention, saying, "It is in no way a coincidence that such things are happening at a time when the closure case is being heard at the Constitutional Court."
A lawyer for Cumhuriyet here said the police had seized two laptops and dozens of CDs.
Erdoğan responded to questions from the press over the news of the recent detentions at noon in front of Parliament. "We hope the investigation will be concluded as soon as possible," he said, adding, "We hope the darkness will be illuminated at the end of this investigation."
The detentions came hours ahead of a hearing in the case in which a chief prosecutor is seeking to have the ruling AK Party shut down for alleged Islamist activities. The prosecutor is due to make an oral argument to the Constitutional Court -- another part of Turkey's secularist establishment. The AK Party denies the prosecutor's charges, saying they are politically motivated.
Novelist Orhan Pamuk, who was prosecuted under a law banning insults to Turkish identity, and members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) -- seen by nationalists as a threat to national sovereignty -- were reportedly on the Ergenekon hit list.

The Ergenekon investigation began as the continuation of an investigation into a house used as an ammunitions depot in June of last year. Revelations emanating from the investigation thus far have shown that many of the attacks attributed to separatist or Islamist groups or seen as hate crimes against minorities were actually "inside jobs" by people connected to Ergenekon.
People such as the lawyer of Yasin Aydın, one of the suspects charged in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, have appeared in court as suspects in the Ergenekon operation.
The investigation into the gang has exposed links between an attack on the Council of State in 2006, threats and attacks against people accused of being unpatriotic and a 1996 car crash known as the Susurluk incident, which revealed links between a police chief, a convicted ultranationalist fugitive and a member of Parliament as well as links to the plans of some groups in Turkey's powerful military to overthrow the government.
Some of the nearly 50 suspects under detention and awaiting trial so far include Veli Küçük, a retired major general who is also the alleged founder of an illegal intelligence unit in the gendarmerie, the existence of which is denied by officials; Workers' Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek; controversial ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, who filed countless suits against Turkish writers and intellectuals at odds with Turkey's official policies; Fikret Karadağ, a retired army colonel; Sevgi Erenerol, the press spokesperson for a shady group called the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate; and Sami Hoştan, a key figure in the Susurluk investigation. Ali Yasak, a well-known gangster linked to the figures in the Susurluk incident, was also detained in the operation.
Ayışığı and Sarıkız
A Turkish political newsweekly closed in April in 2007 after its owner said he couldn't handle police harassment after the magazine published reports revealing that former force commanders had plotted to overthrow the AK Party.
The March 29, 2007 issue of Nokta magazine had published lengthy excerpts from a diary allegedly written by former Navy Forces Commander Adm. Özden Örnek. According to the diary, some former force commanders had planned two separate coups with the codenames Sarıkız (Blonde Girl) and Ayışığı (Moonlight). After the story, the magazine's offices were raided by the police for three days as part of an investigation by the public prosecutor's office in İstanbul's Bakırköy district, acting on a complaint filed by Örnek.
Initially, Adm. Örnek had admitted the diary belonged to him; however, following widespread public attention and reactions against the reports of the coup attempt, Örnek later said the diary was not his.
The magazine's editor-in-chief, Alper Görmüş, was tried, risking up to seven years in prison for "publicly slandering and insulting Adm. Örnek," but was acquitted.