Month: April 2017

U.S. media outlets say terrorist groups have been testing explosive devices that can be hidden in a laptop and that can evade some commonly used airport security screening methods.

CNN and CBS said Friday that U.S. intelligence officials had told them militants with al-Qaida and Islamic State have been developing innovative ways to plant explosives in electronic devices.

The news organizations said the new intelligence suggested that the terror groups have obtained sophisticated airport security equipment to test how to conceal the explosives in order to board a plane.

They said the intelligence played a significant role in the Trump administration’s recent decision to prohibit travelers flying out of 10 airports in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa from carrying laptops and other electronic equipment onboard in the cabin area.

Devices banned on certain flights

Earlier this month, the U.S. government banned laptops and other large electronic devices, including iPads and cameras, from the passenger cabin on flights to the United States from 10 airports in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Britain also took similar measures.

Passengers on those flights must place electronic devices larger than cellphones in their checked luggage.

In a statement to media outlets, the Department of Homeland Security said: “As a matter of policy, we do not publicly discuss specific intelligence information. However, evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in electronics.”

CNN said the intelligence that contributed to the ban on electronic devices was specific, credible and reliable, according to three officials who used the same words to describe it. One official called the intelligence “hair-raising.”
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A case unfolding in a lower Manhattan courtroom has caused political tremors in Honduras, seeming to confirm long-held suspicions that corruption at the highest levels of government helped turn the Central American country into a violent epicenter of the drug trade at the start of this decade.

Fabio Porfirio Lobo, the son of the Honduran president in 2010-2013, is preparing to go before a federal judge for sentencing after pleading guilty to his role in a drug-trafficking ring involving members of Honduras’ national police. But it is the details of the conspiracy that emerged in testimony and newly released court documents which have captivated people back home by tying his father and a brother of the current president directly to traffickers.

Political and civil society groups have been demanding investigations into the allegations, especially against former President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa, who remains a leader in the ruling National Party and is among the wealthiest people in the country, with extensive agricultural land holdings.

“This is something that everyone suspected,” said Edmundo Orellana, a former attorney general of Honduras. “But what we didn’t know was the extent of the involvement with the politicians. This has been a surprise.”

A surprising source

Most of the new information has come from a surprising source: Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, a once-feared leader of a Honduran trafficking organization known as Los Cachiros. He matter-of-factly admitted taking part in dozens of killings, including the country’s former drug czar, as he testified in a largely empty courtroom against the ex-president’s son over two days in March.

“I caused the death of 78 people,” he said at one point. “Together with politicians and drug traffickers.”

Rivera Maradiaga had a decade-long career as a trafficker based on the Atlantic coast. He described paying at least $500,000 in bribes directly to the elder Lobo, beginning when he was running for the presidency in 2009 following a coup that ousted the former president and threw Honduras into political chaos. Rivera Maradiaga was seeking protection for his business and against extradition to the U.S.

Rivera Maradiaga sketched out what became a close working relationship with the younger Lobo during his father’s term in office. It allowed him to ship huge quantities of cocaine to the U.S. in coordination with the cartel led by Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. As U.S. authorities closed in on him, the leader of Los Cachiros surrendered to the Drug Enforcement Administration with his brother in 2013 and became a cooperating witness.

As part of their relationship, the president’s son connected the head of Los Cachiros to corrupt politicians and police to bring in loads of cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela, according to U.S. prosecutors. They said the son helped the trafficker set up front companies, including a zoo north of the capital, and obtain government contracts that enabled him to launder enormous profits.

Brother of Honduras leader named  

Rivera Maradiaga also testified that Antonio Hernandez, a brother of Honduras’ current president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, asked him for a bribe in exchange for government contracts. The brother has denied that allegation.

“Without support from [the president’s son] and Honduran officials, criminality of this magnitude could not have continued, largely unfettered, for as long as it did,” prosecutors wrote in a pre-sentencing brief.

At the time, Honduras had deteriorated into violent upheaval. In 2011, the U.N. ranked it as the country with the world’s highest homicide rate. The U.S. State Department described Honduras as the “primary transshipment point” for U.S.-bound cocaine and lamented that the country received a 2.4 out of 10 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

The situation has improved since Lobo left office. The State Department says in its most recent report that the volume of cocaine that passes through Honduras is down 40 percent since 2014, the homicide rate has dropped a third, and a new national police investigative division “replaced its historically inept and corrupt predecessor.”

In December 2014, with the new president in office, the country extradited the first Honduran citizen to the U.S. on a drug-trafficking charge, Carlos Lobo, who is not related to the former president. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Pence praises government

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence met with Honduras’ president on March 23 and praised the country’s progress fighting drugs and corruption.

As a result of the revelations of alleged corruption by Rivera Maradiaga, the Honduran government said it is conducting a wide-ranging investigation that includes at least four anti-corruption prosecution teams to look into allegedly fraudulent government contracts set up to help Los Cachiros launder money.

Manuel Retureta, a lawyer for Lobo, has declined to comment but said in a motion filed with the court late Thursday that Rivera Maradiaga has downplayed his role in killings and drug trafficking and his allegations against the former president are irrelevant and unproven. “Rivera Maradiaga’s word alone is far from sufficient evidence and should be treated with great caution,” he said.

Help for former gang boss

The DEA and federal prosecutors have declined to discuss the case because it is ongoing. Lobo faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced later this year.

Rivera Maradiaga has pleaded guilty to charges that include drug trafficking and involvement in the slayings of the 78 people, including a woman killed in November 2013 in Quebec after fleeing the gang in her homeland. He also faces up to life in prison at a sentencing scheduled for April.

The former drug gang boss apparently did gain a concession. He said in court that U.S. authorities have allowed his parents and two siblings to come to the United States as he continues to provide assistance.

“I’m in prison,” he said. “And ever since I signed my agreement with the government I have to tell the truth, testify whenever they ask me to, and not commit any more crimes.”
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A lawyer for former national security adviser Michael Flynn says he’s in talks with congressional committees to testify before them in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Those committees are investigating Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election and potential ties between Russia and associates of President Donald Trump.

Trump’s attorney, Robert Kelner, said Thursday night that “no reasonable person” would agree to be questioned “in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.” Trump echoed that sentiment on Twitter Friday, encouraging Flynn to seek immunity from a “witch hunt.”

Here are some questions and answers about the process:

Q: What does it mean to receive immunity, and who can give it?

A: An immunity grant generally shields a witness from prosecution for statements he or she makes to the government.

Congress is empowered to give immunity to witnesses who might otherwise be inclined to avoid a committee hearing, protecting them from having their statements later used against them in a criminal prosecution.

The Justice Department, too, can offer different forms of immunity. One type, for instance, protects a witness from prosecution for any offense related to the testimony, while another, more narrow form simply bars the government from using someone’s testimony against them.

The process of seeking immunity generally involves a person describing to the government what information he or she would be able to provide, a conversation known as a proffer. Investigators may decide immunity is worth it if it’s the only way to secure a witness’s testimony against a higher-value target, or if the testimony is seen as indispensable in resolving unanswered questions.

Plenty of high-profile witnesses have requested immunity for congressional testimony, from high-ranking federal government officials to professional baseball stars, though not everyone has received it.

Q: If a witness seeks immunity, doesn’t that mean he or she is probably guilty of a crime?

A: Not at all.

Since witnesses are under no obligation to speak with the FBI, it’s fairly standard for them — through their lawyers — to demand immunity as an unwavering condition for any kind of conversation they agree to have.

Seasoned lawyers often see no benefit to cooperating with the government without such an agreement, especially since it’s impossible to predict with certainty how the interview will go, what sort of statements or activities investigators will home in on, or whether any vaguely worded questions will trip up their client or prompt an unexpected answer or one unfavorable to their own interests.

“The easiest way to not incriminate yourself is to keep your mouth shut,” said Washington lawyer Steven Ryan, a congressional investigations expert.

Sometimes immunity will be granted if investigators believe a deal is the only, or at least the fastest, way to get the information they need. It can be especially palatable to the Justice Department if the person seeking immunity was never really at risk of prosecution in the first place, or if it represents the best chance to secure the cooperation of an otherwise wary witness whose insight is seen as critical.

The IT expert who set up Hillary Clinton’s email server received limited immunity from the Justice Department last year. Her chief of staff received a limited form of immunity because FBI agents wanted to inspect her computer.

Still, in a nation’s capital consumed by optics, there’s no doubt that an immunity request can make someone appear like he or she has something to hide.

Flynn himself said as much last year about the immunity deals in the Clinton email investigation, saying in a television interview, “When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime.”

That wasn’t necessarily true then, and it’s not any more true now that Flynn himself is seeking congressional immunity.

Q: Why might Flynn in particular seek immunity?

A: It’s already known that he’s attracted the attention of law enforcement authorities. Flynn was interviewed by the FBI in the early days of the Trump administration about communications he had during the transition period with the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak.

He and his firm also recently registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for lobbying work conducted on behalf of a company owned by a Turkish businessman. That businessman, Ekim Alptekin, has told The Associated Press that the registration was made under pressure from the Justice Department.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires people acting as agents for a foreign principal to publicly disclose that relationship.

Q: If Congress chooses to grant immunity, what impact might that have on any criminal investigation?

A: It’s not clear, though there are long-established restrictions on the Justice Department’s ability to use any statements given to Congress under immunity in any future criminal prosecution. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said his panel was “deeply mindful of the interests of the Department of Justice in the matter.”

Though it’s not an impossible burden to clear, Justice Department prosecutors would inevitably have to prove that any case that they bring did not rely on statements made to Congress.

Ryan said there’s no doubt that a grant of congressional immunity can negatively affect a simultaneous criminal investigation.

A congressional committee, he added, has to balance the need to not interfere with a criminal investigation with its own interest in putting information out to the American public.

That was a stumbling block in the 1980s-era prosecutions of Iran-Contra Affair figures Oliver North and John Poindexter, whose convictions were set aside following concerns from judges that witnesses in their criminal cases had been unduly affected by their congressional testimony.
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