Botched Investigations—CIA and FBI

The Washington Post has two intriguing stories on botched investigations. The first is an interesting development in the abduction of Italian Imam Abu Omar.^[1] The second is a look at a terrorism investigation in Florida.

According to the Post, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, was reported by the CIA to Italian authorities to have “fled to an unknown location in the Balkans.”^[2] In reality, however, “the CIA’s tip was a deliberate lie, part of a ruse designed to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric.”^[3]

The ruse worked, apparently, for about a year, until Italian investigators learned that Mr. Nasr had not gone to the Balkans, but instead, it is alleged, had been abducted off a street in Milan by a team of CIA operatives, who are now the subject of an extremely contentious extradition request.^[4] The unfortunate aspect of the entire disinformation campaign, according to Armando Spataro—who has requested the agents’ extradition—is that the kidnapping “seriously damaged counterterrorism efforts in Italy and Europe. … In fact, if Abu Omar had not been kidnapped, he would now be in prison, subject to a regular trial, and we would have probably identified his other accomplices.”^[5]

A pressing question is why the United States wanted Abu Omar in the first place. The Italians had him under surveillance because he was a valuable window into the Islamic underground, and they were on the verge of arresting him when he disappeared.^[6] Phone calls from Mr. Nasr to his associates last year suggested that he was in Egypt, who has wanted him for years for allegedly being part of an Islamic opposition group.^[7] While some European counterterrorism officials speculate that Mr. Nasr was abducted as a favor for the Egyptian government, former US intelligence officials disagree.^[8] “They say the kidnapping was the inspiration of the CIA station chief in Rome, who wanted to play a more active role in taking suspected terrorists off the street.”^[9]

The other interesting story about investigations gone awry comes out of Florida. According to Justice Department investigators, “FBI agents botched a terrorism investigation in Florida and tried to cover up mistakes.”^[10] The investigators also concluded that “a high-ranking official” retaliated against a “longtime undercover agent” who pointed out the problems.^[11] The agent in question is Michael German, who was criticizing an investigation in Orlando that he “believed showed promising signs of a link between terrorism financing and that sale of illegal drugs.”^[12] This theory has quite a bit of credibility as last week’s U.S. News & World Report cover story is about the linkage of transnational crimes and terrorist financing.^[13]

Among the mistakes the Justice Department investigators discovered “in an inquiry that began in January 2004 was the use of correction fluid to alter dates on three FBI forms to obscure an apparent violation of a federal wiretap law.^[14] Furthermore, the agent who handled the FBI investigation in 2002 put predated reports to make it appear that he completed them much earlier than he actually had.^[15] In addition, an account of a key meeting between an informant and the subject of the FBI investigation was not entered into the FBI database for 10 months; “FBI policy says such reporting normally should be done within five days.”^[16]

Because Mr. German complained of the practices, it seems he was excluded from serving as an instructor in undercover training programs.^[17]

We have previously discussed FBI investigatory woes here, and here.

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[1] We have previously discussed Abu Omar here, here, and here.
[2] Craig Whitlock, CIA Ruse is Said to Have Damaged Probe in Milan, Dec. 6, 2005.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Mark Sherman, FBI Bungled Florida Terrorism Investigation, Justice Department Finds, Dec. 6, 2005.
[11] Id.
[12] Id.
[13] See David E. Kaplan, Paying for Terror, U.S. News & World Report 40, Dec. 5, 2005. Interestingly, one of the subjects of Mr. Kaplan’s article is Dawood Ibrahim. One of his associates is Abu Salem, whose first wife is perhaps the subject of an extradition request to the United States, which we have discussed here.
[14] Sherman, supra note 10.
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.