Cached/Copied 01-12-2007 - mpg

From the Wayne Madsen Report

Yuri Golubev: another dead body in Litvinenko/Scaremella/Berezovsky/Nevzlin intrigue.

January 12, 2007 -- Yukos colleague of Leonid Nevzlin and Mikhail Khodorkovsy dies suddenly in bed in London. Police rule death is from natural causes.

Yuri Golubev, 64, a cofounder, along with jailed Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and colleague of former Yukos deputy chairman Leonid Nevzlin, the Russian fugitive in Israel who has been linked to the Alexander Litvinenko-Mario Scaramella affair, was found dead in his bed in London yesterday.

Yuri Golubev: another dead body in Litvinenko/Scaremella/Berezovsky/Nevzlin intrigue.

London's Metropolitan Police, which has been less than helpful in assisting concurrent Russian and Italian investigations of the links between Scaramella, Litvinenko, and Russian-Israeli fugitive Boris Berezovsky, ruled the death as resulting from "natural causes." Golubev was Khordorkovsky's lead negotiator in trying to sell Yukos to Exxon-Mobil in 2003. The plan to sell Yukos collapsed and Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev were jailed by Vladimir Putin's government for fraud and tax evasion.

January 12, 2007 -- Scaramella links to network of individuals out to bring down anti-neocon Italian politicians.

The Italian newspaper Repubblica is reporting on more details of the police investigation of Neapolitan right-wing intelligence operative and swindler Mario Scaramella. The paper is reporting on the contents of a computer file on Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi confiscated in Scaramella's office. The file was created in September 2006, during the consolidation of the Prodi government following the election campaign earlier in the year that brought down rightist Prime Minister and neo-con Silvio Berlusconi. The document reveals that all of Prodi's associates were suspected of being Russian agents. The reporters on the story are Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, the same two journalists who uncovered details of the Nigergate fraudulent documents used by George W. Bush to justify his invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The Scaramella computer file claim that Bonini and D'Avanzo, Gen. Giuseppe Cucchi (chief of CESIS  -- Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza that coordinates both the Italian services SISMI and SISDE -- and an adversary of ex-Italian intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari), and Milan magistrates Armando Spataro  and Guido Salvini were all said to be Russian agents, "according to SVR [Russian Foreign Intelligence Service] sources." All those who helped expose the Nigergate fraud are labeled in the seized computer file as Russian agents or Russian-manipulated operatives. The Scaramella file claims, "Russian SVR considers as its serious enemies those involved in the Nigergate and Abu Omar scandals, like the then-head of SISMI and his faction (Marco Mancini, Gustavo Pignero, Nicolò Pollari).

Italian prosecutor: Scaramella investigation is "only the beginning."

Further information obtained by Repubblica show that the neo-con apparatus was trying to taint Italian officials and journalists as Russian agents much in the same manner as bogus Iraqi documents were used to attack anti-war politicians in Europe as paid agents of Saddam Hussein. The paper said that during a court hearing pause after rejecting Scaraemella's request for bail, Sergio Rastrelli, Scaramella's lawyer and cousin, stated, "I asked my client who the source of this [computer] file was and he said that the information concerning Prodi came from Yevgeni Limarev, the son of an SVR general who had been a "covert" consultant for the Mitrokhin Parliamentary Committee that was trying to taint a number of Italian officials as Russian agents. Reached by phone by Repubblica, Limarev stated: "I am not the source. But I am not surprised. This is another fabrication by Scaramella. If tomorrow they would link my name to the dossier on the death of Pinochet, I wouldn't be surprised."

State attorney Carlo Saviotti stated in the hearing: “The documents confiscated from Scaramella prompt me to say that this investigation is only the beginning. On behalf of whom, in September 2006, did Mario Scaramella receive this dossier? And who paid for it?”

Italian law enforcement has discovered the couriers who supplied Scaramella with cash was Battistolli Group, a security firm, that among other services, provides transportation of foreign currency and security for international jewelry shows, including the Jan. 2007 JEW.INT (Jewelers' International) Showcase in New York; Feb. 20-22, 2007 Fashion Jewels and Accessory Fair in Dubai, the March 6-10 International Jewelry Show in Hong Kong, the May31-June 3, 2007 International Jewelry Show in Moscow, the October 24-28, 2007, and the Mideast Watch and Jewelry Show in Sharjah, UAE. Law enforcement has tracked terrorist financial deals to a number of international jewelry shows where diamonds and other precious gems are fenced for cash to purchase weapons and other materials, including radioactive materials.

The bottom line is that the neo-cons are trying to play the old Joe McCarthy card -- if you try to expose the machinations of the right-wing networks that worked with leading neo-con interests in Washington, London, and Tel Aviv, you are a Communist agent.

Cached/Copied 01-12-2007 - mpg