Magnitsky Report

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image source: http://zed244.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/%E2%80%9Cnashi%E2%80%9D-chicago-style-updated/

1. Magnitsky was an accountant who died in Russian prison in November 2009 under unclear circumstances, while under detention for tax fraud on behalf of his client, Hermitage Capital.

Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky was a Russian accountant in the employ of Firestone Duncan. Based out of Moscow, Firestone Duncan is a law and audit firm specializing in servicing the specialized legal, tax, accounting, and audit needs of foreign ventures doing business in Russia or with Russian parties. Magnitsky is almost always presented as a lawyer, which brings him under the protection of the attorney-client privilege. However as an accountant, no such protection exists. We have read countless times that Magnitsky was a lawyer. Lawyer lawyer lawyer. Sometimes we read he is a lawyer and accountant, acknowledging his accountant's training as a second mention. The half-truth about his role is central to the narrative. Whether he was a lawyer or accountant in this case changes everything.


At the time of his death, Magnitsky was in prison for tax evasion on behalf of one of his clients, Hermitage Capital. Hermitage was founded by William Browder and Edmond Safra. Safra, a well known Sephardi Jewish philanthropist, financed the construction and renovation of synagogues worldwide. Amongst his other financings were schools and hospitals exclusively of benefit to Israelis. He was murdered in December of 1999 during a deliberate act of arson, just after selling the ownership of Heritage to HSBC, one of the biggest banking groups in the world. Five years later Hermitage was hugely successful.

Browder portrays himself as an American investor from Chicago with British citizenship. However, Browder's grandmother was a Russian Jewess named Raisa Irene Berkman. Jewish lineage is traced on the mother's side. Therefore, according to Jewish custom, Browder is Jewish. Nonetheless, Browder presents himself as an American investor from the midwest, a self-made man bravely battling Russian corruption -- the kind of story that appeals to certain Americans.

Some kind of cowboy then?

In fact, Browder's family history includes his grandfather, Earl Browder, Raisa's husband and leader of the American Communist Party, and in addition, through Earl Browder and his wives and a niece, ties to Soviet intelligence. See here, page 15. Also see Venona files: here, here, here here and here. Which is simply to point out the family history of DECEPTION, ESPIONAGE, and COMMUNISM in the Browder family tree. As a result of these family ties to the intelligence community, we expect that Browder probably has connections to the intelligence world, in addition to his connections to the banking world.

In reviewing the stories of the Safra murder, as well as another associate of Browder who died in suspicious circumstances, Edouard Stern, it becomes very clear that these people -- Browder's close partners and associates -- are extremely wealthy people. Stern, for instance, married into the Lazard family, one of the top banking families of the world. These are Browder's peers. Stern was supposed to meet Browder the morning he was discovered dead in a latex bodysuit in his penthouse Geneva apartment, a murder which shocked the financial elite. Many people thought Safra and Stern were Russian mafia hits related to business deals, but both mysteries were supposedly solved otherwise.

Browder is deeply connected.

Meanwhile a cottage industry has sprung up around Sergei Magnitsky's death, and the main purpose seems to be to shine a spotlight on Russian corruption, Browder's favorite topic. Browder and Jamison Firestone, of Firestone Duncan, play an active role in the quest for justice for their friend and colleague, Sergei Magnitsky. 


On November 18, 2009, two days after Magnitsky's death, a letter was allegedly written by managing partner Jamison Firestone and issued to clients and staff of Firestone Duncan. For some reason in the letter, Firestone spelled his name erroneously as Sergey Magnitskey. How does this happen with a man you've known for 15 years, your good friend and colleague?

November 18, 2009

Dear clients, partners and friends,

On the night of November 17, 2009 we lost our colleague and friend Sergey Magnitskey. Sergey was 37.

Sergey died in police custody where he had been held almost a year without trial or bail. He was held by a group of police officers who he had testified against; a group of officers who we believe committed a crime against a client and the Russian State.

Sergey died because he would not cooperate with criminals. He was repeatedly told that if he gave false testimony against his client he would be released and he refused. As time went on his captors put him in ever worsening conditions as a means of pressuring him to cooperate. His health deteriorated and after being diagnosed by prison doctors as needing medication and an operation, the police then increased the pressure on Sergey by denying him medical treatment.
 

We knew that Sergey was ill and that he was suffering. We did not know how bad his condition was but we did our best to bring his illegal detention and his deteriorating condition to the attention of the Russian authorities and we had a lot of help on the way. Despite our efforts and the efforts of many friends, the Russian authorities did not act and Sergey died of a condition that could have been cured with a simple operation and medication.

Many of you knew Sergey professionally, some of you had the opportunity to know him on a more personal level.

Sergey was a remarkable man. Honest, decent, kind, and incredibly knowledgeable. He had faith in Russian law and in Russia. He had a quite strength of character and in the end he maintained his integrity under impossible conditions.

There is a cry of shock and outrage in the press, both in Russia and abroad, and we shall add our voices to it. Like Sergey we believe that rule of law is worth fighting for and we shall do our best to see that his death has some meaning.

On a more personal level, we have lost a great friend; someone we all admired and the kind of person that Russia needs more of. We will miss him greatly. Sergey is survived by his mother, his wife and his two children. Their financial needs will be taken care of. It is the least we can do for our friend.

Respectfully,

Firestone Duncan

Ah, the rule of law -- always worth fighting for until the moment one gets pinched on the ass.

The Firestone letter lays out a case that Sergei's health deteriorated as a means of pressuring him to testify against his client, Browder. As it turns out, the cause of death is still not quite clear after all this time. Nor is it clear whether Magnitsky was healthy when he entered prison. There are many conflicting statements which, in itself, indicates that some parties want to muddy the waters and create confusion.

2. There is considerable confusion regarding the circumstances of Magnitsky's death.

Magnitsky may have had diabetes, chronic active hepatitis, and secondary cardiomyopathy.
He may have died from untreated gallbladder disease, calculous cholecystitis and acute pancreatitis.
He may have been beaten to death.
He may have had a heart attack, the "official" cause of death.


Magnitsky's supporters NOW focus on the untreated gallbladder disease, and the beating he allegedly received just before death, while admitting that he did have cardiomyopathy -- an enlarged heart -- which is a very serious underlying condition. Their story has changed over time. From the letter above, written two days after his death, they seemed confident that, "Sergey died of a condition that could have been cured with a simple operation and medication." The letter makes no mention of him being beaten. That would come later.

Caption reads (translation): "Sergei Magnitsky. Funeral. Pay attention to your hands"

http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/11454

3. There are TWO competing investigations into the Magnitsky death. The official one comes from The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. This investigation gets very little press while coming under constant attack from the other investigation, the so-called "independent" investigation, run by a citizen's group / human rights organization with the official sanction of President Medvedev: the President's Human Rights Council report. The two investigations are generally at odds. Browder and Firestone support the "independent" investigation. The Investigative Committee dismisses it. News reports further add to the confusion by referring to the "independent" report as the President's report, and in general using terms that conflate and obscure the fact that there are TWO competing investigations.

In doc­u­ments issued on 14 July 2011, Inves­ti­ga­tor Boris Kibis of the Cen­tral Fed­eral Dis­trict of the Russ­ian Inte­rior Min­istry stated that the offi­cial posi­tion of the Russ­ian Inte­rior Min­istry is that the President’s Human Rights Com­mis­sion report was “inad­mis­si­ble” and the offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case have com­mit­ted no wrong­do­ing. Fur­ther­more, Kibis con­cluded there is no basis to open a crim­i­nal case against them....These lat­est con­clu­sions by the Russ­ian Inte­rior Min­istry fully con­tra­dict the find­ings by the President’s Human Rights Coun­cil, which deter­mined Mag­nit­sky was arrested unlaw­fully, denied med­ical care, and beaten to death in cus­tody. The Human Rights Coun­cil fur­ther con­cluded that the $230 mil­lion theft from the Russ­ian Trea­sury that was per­pe­trated by Inte­rior Min­istry offi­cials – as exposed by Mag­nit­sky prior to his arrest and death – has not been prop­erly investigated. Russian Interior Ministry Rejects the Findings of President Medvedev's Human Rights Council on the Magnitsky Case, 8/2/11

Unfortunately, we can't find the "documents issued on July 14, 2011" because the documents are not press releases but rather letters addressed to Browder's lawyers, and to our knowledge they have not been released in full or even authenticated by the Russian Interior Ministry.

A New York Times story published in December 2010 reveals many interesting details about the case, while promoting the findings of the scrappy, underdog human rights panel.


A citizen watchdog group took the lead by starting an independent investigation. Heading up this "obscure oversight panel" is a veteran human rights activist named Valery V. Borshchev. Borshchev has become a prominent figure in news coverage of the case. This "obscure oversight panel" became the President's Human Rights Council.

In fact, as the NYT article explains, Medvedev demanded that an investigation commence, and this independent group headed up by Borshchev used that Medvedev announcement as an "umbrella" protection to go into the prison and demand access. Thus did Medvedev facilitate the private inquiry which now opposes the official inquiry.

In a country ruled more by commands than by laws, a command had gone out: This time someone would have to be punished.

So the inspectors walked into Butyrskaya with uncommon confidence.
“We could cover ourselves with this comment and say, ‘The president demanded an investigation,’ ” said Lyubov V. Volkova, deputy head of the panel, known as the Public Oversight Commission. “It was like an umbrella. We could go in and say, show us this, show us that. We are under this umbrella.”

That was very helpful of Mr. Medvedev, or it was very brazen of the panel, or both. Certainly an investigation was already underway by the Russian authorities. But since Magnitsky died in prison, the Russian authorities were under accusation and therefore Browder and Firestone jumped on the need for an "independent" investigation. Lucky for them Mr. Borshchev and his scrappy team of old ladies were there to help.


We think Mr. Borshchev makes for a very good gatekeeper. Mr. Borshchev, who happens to have a long record of supporting certain causes.

4. We do not know what happened to Magnitsky in the final hours. People behaved strangely. Basic facts are in dispute. Information has gone missing.

According to the NYT article, one of the doctors who saw Magnitsky the Friday before he died (he died the following Monday) thought that he had acute pancreatitis. She went home for the weekend. This unidentified female doctor transferred Magnitsky to another prison on Monday, Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where he met a surgeon, Dr. Aleksandra V. Gaus, who noted his symptoms of acute pancreatitis and prepared to send him for treatment. However at the last moment, before sending the violently ill man for treatment, something strange happened. Dr. Gaus changed her mind.

At 7 p.m., Dr. Gaus said, he started to act erratically, and she changed her mind, determining that he was suffering from “acute psychosis and persecutory delusions.” She called a team of eight guards to forcibly subdue him, and they handcuffed him to the bed in an isolation cell to wait for a psychiatric emergency team. An hour and a half later, officials said, he collapsed when the psychiatrist was examining him, and was rushed to intensive care for resuscitation. He was declared dead at 9:50 p.m.
Mr. Borshchev was mulling over this account when he got a startling phone call. A few days earlier, he had left his card for the psychiatrist who was present at Mr. Magnitsky’s death. On the phone was the psychiatrist, Dr. Vitaly V. Kornilov, who told a different story: He and his team had been forced to wait at the clinic’s outer gates for a full hour — roughly from 8 until 9 p.m. — before they were allowed inside.

That is most interesting. Dr. Gaus changed her mind about treating him for his acute pancreatitis and ordered him handcuffed to a bed to await a team of psychiatrists, due to the fact that he was behaving erratically. The team reportedly took a long time to arrive. After 90 minutes he collapsed and died, reportedly while being examined by a psychiatrist, Dr. Vitaly Kornilov, who later told Borshchev that he was not examining Magnitsky when he died because he was forced to wait outside by the prison staff.

In another account of the case, we read that Magnitsky's condition deteriorated on the ambulance ride from one prison to the other, indicating that something unusual may have happened to him in the ambulance....?

By November 2009, he got worse, and doctors decided to transfer him back to Matrosskya Tishina for a more qualified treatment. Magnitsky got to the ambulance on his feet, and was feeling fairly well. Upon arrival, he suddenly fell into a fit of paranoid delusion; his condition quickly deteriorated.

Interestingly, the Russian authorities have recently charged two other doctors in the case with negligence and carelessness: Larisa Litinova and Dmitry Kratov. Others may be charged. These two doctors are on the Cardin list of 60 Russian officials subject to travel bans and asset freezes by the US.

WHY would Magnitsky suddenly start behaving as though suffering from acute psychosis? Why did Dr. Gaus not proceed to transfer the acutely ill man to hospital? Were his symptoms caused by severe pain or by something else? Could Dr. Gaus or someone else have drugged Magnitsky, causing him to have a psychotic episode and causing his death from heart failure? Who else had access to Magnitsky? Who was with him in the ambulance? Was the psychiatrist Kornilov present with Magnitsky at the time of death, or was he detained at the gates?


According to the NYT, the Investigative Committee says (no link from the NYT) that a coroner examined Magnitsky's body 12 hours after death and found his death "sudden and unpredictable as a lightning strike." The cause: heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy. Doctors found no evidence of pancreatitis. Dozens of doctors examined the case and found that, “The drawbacks in medical aid given to Magnitsky have no connection to his death.” To be clear, they seem to admit that he suffered drawbacks in medical aid, but that these lapses did not cause his death. Thus, SOMETHING ELSE must have caused his death. Nonetheless, that could not be determined either, due to the many contradictory statements and actions in the weeks before his death, such as:

• None of the doctors showed concern over his heart, and diagnostic work done three weeks previous showed no heart disease.
• No blood samples were taken when he arrived at the hospital, and little toxicology screening was done after his death.

Regrettable, especially about the toxicology screening. Also, confusing!

So it is difficult to know whether his symptoms were caused by septic shock, an overdose of some agent, or some other form of poisoning. And there was little explanation for the fact that he had been left in a cell for more than an hour in a state of acute distress.

It would seem to us, based on the facts as far as we can ascertain them, that poisoning can not be ruled out. In fact, the Moscow Times noted in July that Russians speculate about a possible doctors' plot. Note Borshchev still pushing for more people to be punished, including Alexei Anichin, who just a few weeks later was reassigned by Medvedev.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has blamed prison doctors for the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky – the first time the country’s law enforcement agencies have admitted he was killed unlawfully.

The announcement is prompting Russian media to speculate that a new “doctors’ plot” is being hatched to find a scapegoat in the case – a reference to Stalin’s last purge shortly before his death in 1953, in which Jewish doctors were accused of trying to poison the dictator.... “It was said earlier that [Magnitsky] died on his own, that nobody was to blame. Now it is at least acknowledged that he wasn’t provided with medical care,” Valery Borshchev, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, told The Moscow News. “Now the doctors’ fault is admitted, which is right because they are indeed guilty. But it’s still not enough. The investigators are to blame too, including Investigation Committee [official] Alexei Anichin, Matrosskaya Tishina governor Alexei Potapenko and Butyrka prison governor Dmitry Komnov.”
Borshchev said law enforcement agencies had yet to properly consider evidence that Magintsky was beaten to death in jail, and to probe officials involved in investigating Magnitsky’s death who themselves were accused by Magnitsky and Browder of fraud.

However, we must ask if some of these doctors did indeed cause Magnitsky's death, and if so, which ones, and if so, CUI BONO?

5. Contrary to the cottage industry narrative about the Russian authorities causing Magnitsky's death to cover up their own corruption, the Investigative Committee had a strong case against Magnitsky. The case ended upon his death, which was obviously a bad development for the Russian government. Bill Browder, on the other hand, had a motive to see Magnitsky dead: self-preservation. Browder gained from Magnitsky's death. The case against Magnitsky ended, and in addition, the suspicious death began a whole new rousing round of Russian Corruption.

 

The case against Magnitsky ENDED upon his death, ending the case prepared by the Russian government. Although the Russian government has very recently decided to reopen the case, which we expect to keep things interesting. Especially since, according to reports summarized at Russian Mafia, the Interior Ministry had a very strong case against Magnitsky.

In “Hermitage” it was thought that Magnitsky in prison was put under pressure to make him testify against Browder, but he did not give up, and he paid for this. Colleagues of Magnitsky required attracting to criminal liability for defamation the Deputy of Interior Minister Alexey Anichin. After the death of Magnitsky, Anichin stated that all charges against the late are almost proven, but there was no court, and therefore he had no right to say this publicly.
Source: "Kommersant" from 05/07/2010

Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Mr. Anichin has recently been reassigned by Mr. Medvedev. He is also on the Cardin list of Russian officials banned in the US for complicity in Magnitsky's death. Is Mr. Anichin a corrupt official, or simply a competent one?

President Dmitry Medvedev has replaced several top officials in the Interior Ministry over the weekend in one of the biggest reshuffles the ministry has seen in recent years.

Three of the four dismissed generals are Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev’s deputies: first deputy Yevgeny Shkolov, criminal police chief Mikhail Sukhodolsky and the head of the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee, Alexei Anichin.

Anichin has been named as a key figure in the case of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in 2009, sparking an international outcry. His name has appeared in a list from US Senator Ben Cardin of allegedly corrupt Russian officials who should be denied US visas. In the list, Anichin is described as having “authorized a repressive criminal case against… Magnitsky on fabricated grounds.”

To help you decide, our team here at Suspicious Deaths has uncovered several sources for the story NOT being told: the case against Magnitsky. We encourage readers to visit these links. The case is confusing. It's a lot more confusing than Mr. Browder and Mr. Firestone would have you think, seeing as they and Mr. Magnitsky were all very busy managing the confusing Hermitage empire of shell companies and disabled employees.

http://marknesop.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/sergei-magnitsky-bill-browder-hermitage-capital-management-and-wondrous-metamorphoses/ -- EXCELLENT SUMMARY AND OCCAM'S RAZOR ANALYSIS

http://zed244.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/%E2%80%9Cnashi%E2%80%9D-chicago-style-updated/ -- RUSSIAN BLOGGER WHO CREATED THE BROWDER DOLLAR

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcompromat.ru%2Fpage_23653.htm -- EXTENSIVE COVERAGE ON THE RIGHT SIDEBAR

http://www.workoninternet.com/business/reviews/computers-internet/software-services/86891-law-firm.html -- EXCELLENT SHORT SUMMARY


http://75.126.244.46/person.php?id=159 -- COMPREHENSIVE DOSSIER ON BROWDER

http://sites.google.com/site/rusmafiaeng287/novosti/2010-08-06jamisonreedthenobleoutlawjamisonreedfirestone -- INSIDER ACCOUNT?

Just this past November, Russian authorities shook another witness out of the bushes in Ukraine, Vyacheslav Khlebnikov, general director of a Tatarstan-based company who confessed and implicated Magnitsky. Team Hermitage denies the charges and calls Khlebnikov a criminal.

The same week Russian police spokesperson Irina Dudkina gave a press conference in which she explained the evidence against Magnitsky:

Russian prosecutors insisted on Monday that Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer who defended a British hedge fund in Russian courts in a tax evasion case, was the financial mastermind behind a huge fraud, and not just a lawyer.
"Magnitsky was an economist and worked as an accountant and auditor. In this capacity he devised tax evasion schemes," police spokesperson Irina Dudkina said at a press conference.

Dudkina presented charts and other evidence at the press conference.

Irina Dudkina, spokesperson for Russian police, presenting evidence against Magnitsky at a press conference on 11/16/10. source: http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/RTV/2010/11/16/RTV2929410/?v=0&a=1

Story: On the eve of the anniversary of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky's death in a Russian prison, Russia's Interior Ministry reiterated its position that Magnitsky was not a whistleblower, but himself the author of a scheme to cheat the Russian government out of 5.6 billion rubles (180 million USD) in tax revenue.
The 37-year-old anti-corruption lawyer, who said he had discovered Hermitage-owned companies had been raided by crooked cops and used to defraud the Russian government of 230 million USD in taxes, was arrested in the summer of 2008 and placed in a cramped cell where rights advocates say he was denied medical care. Magnitsky died in Moscow's 'Matrosskaya Tishina' pre-trial detention centre on November 16, 2009.
Ministry spokesman Irina Dudkina on Monday (November 15) revealed scans of documents she said Magnitsky had forged, complete with official stamps bearing the name of his company "Duncan Firestone". She also showed a large chart outlining the different banks and companies she said helped launder money in schemes in which he allegedly participated.
"In this case, Magnitsky was an accountant and took part in developing schemes for tax evasion. That 's why it is impossible in this case to maintain that he was just carrying out orders from his employers without realizing the final goal of his activities. He was fully informed of what they were trying to achieve," Dudkina said.
Magnitsky's death drew international attention, prompting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to push through a law allowing suspects in economic crimes to be released on bail. Last Friday (November 12), the anti-corruption group Transparency International awarded Magnitsky its "Integrity Award."
Dudkina did answer a question on the investigation into Magnitsky's death, saying experts confirmed he died of heart failure, and further investigation results would be published by the government's committee of investigation.

From the above links we can glean certain details of the case against Magnitsky.


We learn that Browder hired expensive Russian lawyers who could have had Magnitsky moved, but did nothing.

According to a Latin wisdom: “done by the one who profits.” Dead Magnitsky could bring the dividends only to his former employer, owner of the Investment Fund “Hermitage Capital Management” William Browder.  From the safety of his London location, Browder hired influential attorneys for Magnitsky from the Moscow-based law firm “Gridnev and Partners”.  These high-profile lawyers would have no problem arranging better conditions for Magnitsky in jail, but they did not spend a dime on it.  Their real job was not to save Magnitsky, instead they were hired to protect Browder.  Before Magnitsky died, no one spoke about his indictment.  Browder and the lawyers made sure not to attract media’s attention to the case.  After Magnitsky’s death, however, Browder made him a scapegoat.

We learn that Browder and Magnitsky hired disabled people and Afghan veterans as fake "financial analysts," destitute people, paying them about $16 dollars a month, and collecting government subsidies for creating jobs for veterans and the disabled.

Using these people Browder made millions for himself, and created an investment portfolio worth 4 billion dollars.  He paid the invalids 500 rubles a month (about $16) when minimum legal wage was 4,000 rubles (about $130).   Now these people are considered criminals and they are testifying against him.

Here is a good summary of the case. Note the EVIDENCE.

Hermitage worked in Russia through a network of around 20 companies that were scattered throughout Russia. The attention of the police was drawn to those registered in Kalmykia, a local offshore zone at the time. All foreign investors encountered the same problem in 1997, when they were forbidden from trading in Gazprom stock on the Russian stock exchange. They could still buy it legally, as Gazprom ADR were traded in London, but the difference between quotes was more than 333% when the ADR were initially issued. The ban was imposed in order to help the government consolidate ownership of the gas giant. Such a promising profit margin made foreign investors look for alternatives, and they were easily found. “Grey” schemes of cross-ownership were widely used, and Hermitage was no exception. They opened two companies, “Saturn Investments” and “Dalnaya Step”, in Kalmykia; Browder was appointed CEO of both the companies. In order to minimize taxes they hired 4 disabled persons as financial analysts, 2 for each company, which made the companies eligible for additional tax remissions. One of the analysts turned out to be mentally handicapped – apparently this is the secret to beat Wall Street, I’m just little surprised that Goldman Sachs and Bank of America don’t use this winning strategy. As a result, companies paid only a 5.5% tax rate, instead of a full 35%. Thus, Hermitage violated the following laws: 1) the ban on trading in Gazprom stocks; 2) the requirements of the special tax zone, as none of the profits were invested in Kalmykia; 3) the application of the tax remissions, as all the disabled persons were on the payroll nominally (here are their testimonies: 1,2,3,4). The whole scheme was developed by Magnitsky himself; all entries in disabled persons’ employment record books were made in his handwriting, and signed by Browder (1,2). Later, the description of the scheme was found in Magnitsky’s seized computer. Hermitage claims that they weren’t involved in tax evasion, providing as a proof the stamp of the local tax office on their tax declaration. But that doesn’t make the scheme they were using legal, it simply meant that taxes were calculated correctly, according to the rate chosen by the taxpayer.

Browder set up companies as special-purpose vehicles in the offshore drilling territory of Kalmykia. He put his foreign investors money in these companies and bought the Gazprom shares at a low price, skirting the rules on foreign ownership of Gazprom stock.

Through this scheme, instead of the assessed 15% tax on dividends, he paid only 5%.  He avoided the 24% regional tax on income, and to cut the Federal tax in half, he “hired” the veterans and the disabled.  As a result, he paid 5.5% to the Russian Treasury instead of 38%.

Five-point-five percent instead of thirty-eight percent? Sounds like TAX EVASION to us. Maybe we misunderstand. But we presume these are the sorts of things discovered and documented by the Russian Interior Ministry, by the people on Ben Cardin's list.


Wait there's more.

From just two of his Kalmyk firms Saturn Investments and Far Steppe, Browder was able to obtain fraudulent tax refunds from the Russian Treasury for $20 million.  There are also Orient K, Oasis M, Reland, Cameo and others that no one looked into.  But Browder did not only cheat Russia.  He also cheated his own investors.  In the memorandum of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, Browder declared to his investors that the taxes were 38%.

Browder was able to close the Saturn Investments’ case with the help of bribing, but he wasn’t so lucky with Far Steppe, the judge handling the case turned out to be an honest one. So Browder filed bankruptcy for Far Steppe and stole the money of his investors by moving it through two small banks into “temporary” companies.  $25.8 million were lost in Browder’s endless Kalmyk Steppe.

Stealing from the Russian people... stealing from his investors..... ?

We wonder who these investors might be and whether they would appreciate such behavior. It seems odd that we don't hear anything about the investors getting screwed.

We learn that some of the money used to set up these companies came from NY banks.

What exactly was Browder’s “business” about?  Through these special-purpose Kalmyk firms he purchased papers of strategic Russian companies: Sberbank, Surgut Neftegaz, Rosneft, Gazprom. The money for this came not  only from the Investment fund Hermitage Capital, but also from mysterious sponsors in New York, whose address matches with the corporate headquarters address of CitiBank, which is known for its connections to FBI.  When Browder gained control of majority of stock of the Russian Corporations, he started blackmailing them with lawsuits and attempting to control their financial operations.  Browder prohibited Sberbank from issuing additional shares.  He did not let Rosneft raise its capital and interfered during its merge with Ugansk Neftegaz. He forced Surgutneftegaz to sell its dominant shareholders package.  Just one of Browder’s Kalmyk companies, Reland, filed 4 lawsuits against Gazprom. Browder’s business strategy: the worst Russian economy is doing, the better it is for his American sponsors.

In November of 2005 Browder was expelled from Russia and refused a re-entry visa. However as Head of the Moscow branch of Hermitage Capital, he found a way to work in Russia on a guest visa. He considered it unnecessary to comply with the laws and rules of this country. He was sure that he can solve all his problems with money. The criminal case against Browder for unpaid taxes in Kalmykia was opened in 2004. Eight times he was able to close it with bribes. Only in four years, in February of 2008 the case was finally reopened. He is scared to death of the open trial and international warrant, that’s why from his faraway London location he announced that anybody who had anything to do with discovering his fraudulent and criminal activities are corrupted and are Magnitsky’s murderers. He makes media appearances, and with his ally American Senator Benjamin Cardin he creates “blacklists”.  Remarkably, he developed an amnesia regarding the disabled Russian veterans that he used and incriminated. But the name of Magnitsky, whom he left to die in jail, he repeats like a magic spell, every chance he gets. While Sergei Magnitsky was locked up in jail, Browder traveled the world. He visited South Africa and Arab Emirates. In the luxurious Carlton Towers hotel he held an extravagant farewell for the vanished in prison Magnitsky.

Today Browder keeps lying to his investors and to the entire world, covering up his tax fraud and criminal activity with Magnitsky’s name.  This is called the bloody PR…

6. The tax refund of $230 million is at the center of the case. Browder claims it was stolen by corrupt Russian officials, high level operatives basically, who raided Firestone Duncan's offices, stole company stamps, used them to set up false documents, then applied for a refund from the tax office, which refund was processed with unheard of speed.

Russian police say they have closed the case file on the country's largest tax fraud. It occurred on December 24 in 2007, when Moscow tax officials approved a same-day refund of 5.4 billion rubles -- or $230 million -- to a gang masquerading as officers of Hermitage Capital, once the largest hedge-fund manager in Russia and founded by financiers Edmond Safra and Bill Browder. Interior Ministry police claim the complex scam was pulled off by a sawmill worker and a burglar, both currently serving five-year sentences, in cahoots with four others, all of whom are now dead. One had a fatal heart attack before the crime took place. A second fell from his balcony. The third plummeted out a penthouse window. And then there was Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer for Hermitage who died in prison after complaining police were torturing him to retract evidence that the $230 million had been stolen by a ring of corrupt tax officials, Interior Ministry cops and career criminals. Crime and Punishment in Putin's Russia, April 2011

Almost all the money is still missing. Irina Dudkina, the spokeswoman mentioned above, told Barron's that bank records were all destroyed in a truck that crashed and exploded in 2008. What are the odds?! It was Browder who pushed for the investigation, Browder who wants to get to the bottom of it all. Because he is allegedly the VICTIM of this crime. The story goes on to unpack the role of the tax official, Olga Stepanova, and her family, and how large sums of money appeared in various accounts of the Stepanovas in various places like Cyprus and Dubai.

The money arrived at Credit Suisse through a globe-spanning trail of shell companies created by a Who's Who of offshore-secrecy consultants -- including a New Zealand agent whose operation we've previously found amid North Korean arms trafficking and money laundering for a Mexican drug cartel (see "Small New Zealand Firm's Link in Smuggling Case," Jan. 4, 2010).

That New Zealand case links to the plane seized in Thailand carrying missiles allegedly from North Korea to Iran. From there we could go into Victor Bout, Wachovia Bank, money laundering of Mexican drug money, etc. We don't have time for that but we think it's safe to say that whatever is going on with this case with Mr. Browder, it connects into other high elements of organized crime.

And so the main question here is whether Mr. Browder was a victim or was he the perpetrator of this tax fraud, availing himself of these shell companies to launder the money. 

Because if he is the perpetrator, he would presumably have people on the inside of the Russian government who would be in positions to arrange things to happen, like tax refunds, and to arrange things to disappear, like evidence, etc. That is the DEFINITION of organized crime. It is organized. There are people on the inside who make things happen officially.

BUT, would Browder the American possibly have such contacts in Russia? Based on the information we uncovered about his background and his partners, we would think YES. And we are not the only people who think that, but one has to do A LOT OF SEARCHING THROUGH THE THICK WEEDS to come to this conclusion.

In the alternate version of events that we offer for your consideration, supported by the diligent work of many others in the above links, Magnitsky was the accounting mastermind behind the tax fraud. The Russian authorities were onto Browder for years but he had bribed his way out of several earlier lawsuits. The raid at Firestone Duncan took place and various documents and seals were confiscated. All key Hermitage employees quickly left for London except Magnitsky, who was booked to leave as well but the police arrested him first. That mishap was spun as Magnitsky heroically staying behind to be the whistleblower.

We are not sure about the raid, and whether Browder had some corrupt people in on the raid, because certainly it seems that Hermitage made delicious lemonade out of those lemons. The stamps and documents were seized, which became "stolen." And from there the whole tax refund narrative became possible with the "stolen" seals. We find this account of the raid most interesting along those lines, but can't understand why the dates are completely off.

We find this Occam's razor analysis the most likely explanation for what happened -- an excellent analysis by Mark Chapman of The Kremlin Stooge blog and one of his contributors, kovane.

So representatives of HCM approached one Oktay Gasanov, whose acquaintance Semyon Korobeynikov specialized in that sort of tax scam. They created duplicates of seals (later, an expert examination showed that the stamps on the false tax rebate applications had NOT been made with the ones seized during the search of Hermitage’s office), and reregistered all three companies to Korobeynikov’s associates. One of them, Markelov, later testified that he had once met with Magnitsky, who prepared the false tax rebate applications and stamped them with the duplicate seal. HCM wanted some insurance and refused to open new accounts in Korobeynikov‘s bank, insisting on using old accounts, opened in HSBC Bank. The companies then went on with losing the bogus cases in court, creating losses. [inoculation - ed.] And that’s where Hermitage made an egregious blunder that ruined their entire ruse. The court fees were paid from the accounts in HSBC bank already AFTER Hermitage’s claim about the hijacking of Makhaon, Rilend and Parphenion. Everyone was in a bit of hurry – the tax rebate applications had to be filed before the end of the year, when suddenly in October 2007 Gasanov died of a heart attack. He was the single liaison between Hermitage and Korobeynikov, and the latter had everything he needed to organize the scam. So he decided it would be much merrier to go on without Hermitage. Such a turn of events couldn’t have made Browder happy, and HCM started ringing all the alarm bells. They quickly “investigated” the scam and wrote letters to the Investigative Committee, Prosecutor General’s Office and MVD on the 7^th of December, 2007, revealing all details. But it was too late – on the 24^th the tax rebate applications were filed, and on the 26^th all $230 million were transferred to the accounts opened in Korobeynikov’s bank beforehand. Later, Korobeynikov died in an accident – he fell from the balcony of his country house, tying the single loose end in this case. Browder tried to force Renaissance Capital to reveal the information about the circumstances of their entities’ involvement in the similar scam, but it seems without result. The Russian police investigation only revealed additional evidence that Hermitage had had something to do with the tax fraud – the constituent documents of allegedly hijacked companies were found in possession of one of Hermitage’s lawyers. And part of the money was recovered later: only $25 million of the whole $230 million, but that’s it.

So it's still a little confusing we think, but our main goal is not to clear everything up from 7000 miles away, which we certainly can't do and will leave that to the fine journalists and bloggers who understand financial skullduggery, but we are happy to poke big holes in the Hermitage narrative. We want people to understand at least one thing: just because there's corruption in Russia, it does not follow that Bill Browder wears a fucking halo. 


So let's conclude with a little vignette about Bill Browder.....the self-made man at the center of this case.


Gideon Lichfield, a writer for the Stanford Business report, apparently attended Browder's 40th birthday party in Moscow in 2006.

As the fake Lenin declaimed, the real Browder simpered, and the virtual Browders pontificated silently around us, we watched with both amusement and embarrassment, exchanging snide jokes about his overblown ego while stuffing our faces with sushi and downing cocktails at his expense....quite a lot of people—including not a few of Browder's birthday guests—do not really like the man. Since his visa to Russia was revoked a year ago, there has been not a little schadenfreude that the upstart has finally gotten his just deserts—as well as feverish speculation about whom he finally pushed that one step too far. Browder's demeanor is a strange mix of caution and directness, like someone who is permanently ready both to be attacked and to meet it head on. But he owes his success, in large part, to an ability to make enemies without overly caring...."When you make a lot of money investing," he says, "it releases a certain chemical in your body and it's as addictive as crack cocaine."

This is the man who complains incessantly about Russian corruption, and accuses Russian officials of causing the death of Sergei Magnitsky, and gets the support of people like Senators Cardin, Kyl and Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, et. al. to make a blacklist to punish 60 high level Russian officials doing their jobs uncovering corruption in Russia, and literally causing a geopolitical upset between the US and Russia over Sergei Magnitsky. Because the Russian officials are doing a bad job? Or, are they doing their jobs too well for some people?

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." ~ Shakespeare

Amschel Rothschild

Exclusive To *The Spotlight*
August 5, 1996
By Sasha Rakoczy

French police have determined that Amschel Rothschild, heir to
the fabulous Rothschild banking fortune, was murdered, according
to well-placed European sources.

But, French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac has ordered police to
close their investigation. Media outlets worldwide have ignored
these mysterious developments. Some have reported the death was
a suicide, other outlets disregarded the death altogether.

As if obeying an invisible choir-master, the world's competing
news organizations silenced their strident sensationalism this
month to cover up the mysterious death.

In the United States, newspapers controlled by Rupert Murdoch,
the foreign-born owner of the world's largest media empire,
either studiously ignored reports that Rothschild had met a
violent end, or relegated it to the back pages as a mere "heart
attack."

A *Spotlight* inquiry has established that Rothschild, 41, a
billionaire investment banker and a noted sportsman in excellent
health, was discovered lifeless on the floor of the bathroom of
his suite at the luxurious Bristol Hotel in Paris on July 8 at
7:32 pm.

Police found that he had been strangled with the heavy cord of
his own bathrobe. One end of the cord was attached to a towel
rack, as if to suggest that Rothschild's violent death was
self-inflicted.

"The [French] crime scene investigators never called it
'suicide,'" reporter Theirry de Segonzac told *The Spotlight* in
a telephone interview from Paris. "After photographing the body,
one of the detectives gave the towel rack tied to the body a
strong tug. It came right out of the wall."

Had Rothschild really attempted to hang himself from that rack,
he would have ended up with nothing worse than a couple of holes
in the wall, de Segonzac said.

There was no suicide note, no discernible cause or reason for a
finding of suicide, knowledgeable sources say. Rothschild, an
athletic and imperious figure in early middle age, was a renowned
race car driver and the husband of Anita Guinness, herself one of
the world's wealthiest heiresses. The couple had three children
who spent most of their time on the family's baronial estate in
Suffolk, England.

Rothschild had arrived in Paris to take over one of the many
family consortium's French assets -- management operations which
were to be merged with N.M. Rothschild's London-based investment
banking center.

"Far from being 'troubled,' Amschel Rothschild's star was on the
rise and he relished his success," says an executive at Keefe,
Bruyetter and Co., a respected Wall Street monitor of the
financial services industry. "I don't believe for a moment he
suddenly went and killed himself. There's much more to this
story."

But with frantic speed -- within an hour after the body's
discovery -- authorities and news executives in both France and
Britain launched an unusual joint offensive to preempt a public
inquiry or a press investigation into the circumstances of
Rothschild's death.

"Murdoch sent a hotline fax to his 600-odd editors and news
managers around the world, ordering them to report Amschel's
death as a heart attack, if at all," said British broadcast
reporter Ian Gooding. "No one around here has ever seen such
pressure to kill a front-page story. But in the end, the
cover-up was complete."

Grand New Changes on the Horizon!

Greetings all and sincere gratitude for all of your patience, which I hope to reward in short order. Recently, I intimated that new cases and posts were forthcoming and indeed they are, as the Suspicious Deaths investigative team has now increased by three. I'd like you all to extend a very warm welcome to three of the absolutely most tenacious and brilliant  researchers I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with. They are (in no preferential order) A. Peasant, A13 and Penny, and if you are not already familiar with their phenomenal work, I've complied links to their sites located in the right panel of this blog. Please take time to avail and apprise yourself of their investigative journalism for it is well worth the effort. Also, please proffer recognition and thanks to Suraci for originally creating this site and working hard to establish it as a research and information resource. A source for the curious, and  those wishing to learn more about people who prematurely lost their lives due to various suspect circumstances, political activities & involvements, or their progressive threat capacity to the architects of this hell. 

One major new change is that we are now collaborating our research on cases here and I believe the results will be outstanding, and provide the reading audiences with more substantial content, new evidence and exclusive information. As always, if there's a person of interest who died under very suspicious conditions or you suspect they've been murdered due to political reasons and you believe there's evidence of so, please forward your leads to suspiciousdeaths@yahoo.com. 

Thanks again to all our faithful readers and associates for your continued support, loyalty, and patience. If there are any new readers amongst the massive, I extend to you all a hearty welcome. 

Cheers, 

- The SDI (Suspicious Deaths Investigations) Team

Apologies for the Wait... New Posts Will be Forthcoming

Greetings to all, please be patient as new posts will be delivered soon. Apologies for the protracted wait but this is a long-term work in progress and I've been extremely busy running about attending to other priorities. Your readership is very important and we thank you sincerely for your patience as post updates and the time management needed to produce them is properly sorted.

Cheers and gratitude.

- HHQ

Moustapha Akkad

(July 1, 1930 – November 11, 2005)

It's been a very long time indeed to have gone without posting here as my other site keeps me well busy. You have my apologies, so without any further delay we'll get started straight away. The origins of this investigation started when I was watching a documentary on the making of the film "John Carpenter's Halloween" (that is the true title although people have shortened it to just 'Halloween'). I've always found this film intriguing, and have a great respect for the severely underrated film director John Carpenter. Carpenter has produced many films of note that disclose and portray things not often portrayed in film, especially today. Escape from New York, Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing and They Live are all considered classics now, that impart a grounded atmosphere and introduce anti-heroes that have magnificent resonance. It was during the documentary that it was revealed that the producer of the Halloween films was none other Moustapha Akkad. Akkad was a proud Muslim and was murdered along with his daughter Rima Akkad Monia in a terrorist's bombing at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Amman, Jordan. Knowing what I know about black ops, false flags and the lot, I found this particular incident suspicious and highly unusual. One because the grand majority of terrorist acts are actually black op false-flag attacks engineered by the Mossad, CIA, MI6, or a combined effort of all three by proxy using pseudo-gangs such as Al Qaida or the Taliban. The Raymond Davis affair particularly reveals this type of operation in full glaring detail. So I did some investigation into Akkad and the terror bombing in Amman and this is what I uncovered.

Akkad was a Syrian-American film producer and director born in Aleppo, Syria July 1, 1930. After Syrian independence from the French colonial rule in 1946, he pursued his dream of film direction through studies at the American Aleppo College. He wanted to go to the US to accomplish his goal in Hollywood, but prospects were dim. However, through the assistance of his American theatre arts teacher Douglas Hill, he was able to get accepted into the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1954, when Akkad was 18, he arrived at the airport to leave. My father said goodbye and put $200 in one pocket and a copy of the Koran in the second pocket, saying "That's all I can give you." He attended UCLA for four years and graduated in 1958. Shortly after, he interned under the American director Sam Peckinpah whilst studying for his Master's degree at the University of Southern California (USC). Los Angeles director Sam Peckinpah contacted Akkad whilst searching for an Arab speaking consultant while developing a film on the Algerian revolution for independence. Unfortunately, when the Algerian Revolution ended, the film was subsequently dropped, but the bond between Akkad and Peckinpah remained.

After graduating USC, Akkad accepted Peckinpah’s invitation to work with him as a production assistant at MGM studios on the movie "Ride the High Country". Akkad later moved on to the CBS News Department and, with Peckinpah’s encouragement, produced his own show entitled “As Others See Us”, which examined the different ethnic groups in the States and how their backgrounds affect their lives in America. Following this success, he then formed Akkad International Productions, specialising in documentaries as well as features. The success of one of these early documentaries, "Caesar’s World", broadcast across the United States, allowed him to open offices for his film company in Beirut, London, and Hollywood. Hosted by actor Cesar Romero, the show would visit different locales around the world and offer insight to its people’s culture and history. Akkad then embarked on an extensive jet-bound campaign to raise financing for the 1976 film, “The Message”, telling the world for the first time in international feature film proportions, the story of the beginnings of Islam. In the film The Message, Akkad proudly sought to create an atmosphere of understanding between Islam and the West (a progression diametrically opposite to the goals of Zionism). Due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter, and the importance of the spoken language of the Quran, Akkad made movie history by simultaneously filming his epic in two languages, English and Arabic, with two completely different sets of actors. This effort was just another example of his dedication to the integrity and accuracy of the films. Akkad stated in an interview, “I did the film because it is a personal thing for me. Besides its production values as a film, it has its story, its intrigue, its drama. Beside all this I think there was something personal, being Muslim myself who lived in the West I felt that it was my obligation my duty to tell the truth about Islam. It is a religion that has a 700 million following, yet it's so little known about it which surprised me. I thought I should tell the story that will bring this bridge, this gap to the West.”

Akkad went on to form Falcon International Productions, and to fully finance and distribute “John Carpenter's Halloween”, a modest-budget spine-chiller, written and directed by John Carpenter. Carpenter, an aspiring young filmmaker, and producer Irwin Yablans, set out to make a low budget, horror movie about babysitters being stalked and killed on Halloween. They approached Moustapha Akkad for project support and financing. After speaking with Carpenter, and hearing his ideas and passion for the project, Akkad agreed to finance and produce the film. Eventually, John Carpenter's Halloween went on to break all box-office records for an independently produced and distributed film. After the success of Halloween, Akkad set his sights on another epic story of resistance. His next film, “Lion of the Desert”, would see him reunited with Anthony Quinn in the title role. Quinn would play Omar al-Mukhtar, an Arab Muslim teacher who rises up against fascist Italy’s invasion of Libya. Akkad kept producing films in the Halloween series and other in the horror genre, but they were clearly meant to be financial vehicles to fund his true passion, which was to produce films on Islam and heroic Semitic Arab heroes. Former Jordanian Prime Minister Tahir Masry who was a friend, commented "He (Akkad) had a good sense of what he wanted to do," Masry said. "He wanted to establish an Arab cinema production company to make big productions about Arab history and historical figures." This is very important to note, as if you reflect upon the current agit-prop demonisation of Islam, Muslims and people's of Semitic (Arabic) descent you can clearly see how this would conflict with Zionist machinations. The denigration and defamation of Arabic peoples has always been the focal point and primary goal of post-Israel Zionism. One only need examine Hollywood television and film productions from that period to today to corroborate this statement. In today's Hollywood, Akkad's positive films on Islam and it's heroes would NEVER see the light of day, much less gain funding, the resources to produce it and the associated distribution. The forces of strategically infiltrated Zionist interests have established an infrastructure in place that only reflects media that advance their agenda.

Akkad had a studio at Twickenham in Great Britain and he tried to buy famed Pinewood Studios from the Rank Organisation. In 2001, he began preparations for his third epic entitled "Saladin", a high-budget Hollywood production with Sean Connery cast in the role of the Muslim sultan. Akkad lacked the funding for the project, so he toured the Arab world from 2003 to 2005 seeking support for his Saladin project. The film, which was to cost $80 million and to be filmed in Jordan, was described by Akkad shortly before his death: "Saladin exactly portrays Islam. Right now, Islam is portrayed as a terrorist religion. Because of a few terrorists are Muslims, the whole religion has that image. If there ever was a religious war full of terror, it was the Crusades. But you can’t blame Christianity because of a few adventurers did this. That’s my message."

Moustapha Akkad was known to be a very intelligent man, keen to the ways of the world and the inner workings of his profession. In an interview conducted at his Century City, Los Angeles office, March 26, 2002, Akkad boldly laid bare Zionism's power in Hollywood and the world. "The media runs the world. Absolutely. No tanks or planes. The media and the public companies. This is what The Protocols of [the Learned Elders of] Zion [is all about]. The Zionists, last century, were persecuted in Europe. So they immigrated to the United States. They had a target. They were united. And they did not permit [statements] critical of Zion. They went all the way to control the world and to control the minds of the people through the media. There's a lesson to learn from them. They have control of the media here. We know it. They did not do it through tanks or machine guns. They planned of course. They united." Akkad asserted. He continued… "There is a red line if I get into the issue of Israel but the Jews, like everyone else, wants to make money…". The interviewer Luke Ford then states, "But movie and TV producers are 70% Jewish."; and Akkad replies: "Yes. The studios are. That control is financial but not the creative aspect. You can't be more Jewish than Miramax [owned by Disney and operated by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, distributed last two Halloween films]. They financed me and I did it. But probably if I did something about Israel, they would not. So I get financing from overseas, such as when I did The Message."

On November 9, 2005, 3 separate terrorist bombings simultaneously attacked the Radisson SAS, Days Inn and Grand Hyatt hotels in Amman Jordan. The combined casualties numbered at 60 dead and 115 injured, the original figures were 67 dead and over 300 injured, but the figures were inexplicably revised by the Jordanian government. Among the casualties was Moustapha Akkad and his daughter Rima Akkad Monia, Rima was killed immediately and Moustapha was critically injured and died on November 11th. The suicide bombings were quickly attributed to 4 individuals who spoke "Iraqi-accented Arabic", and were affiliated with the Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi‘s Al-Qaida group in Iraq. In the post-911 false-flag rampant world, this is what I refer to as red flag number one. The pattern is now all too familiar, the horrific terrorist attack, followed by the all-too convenient blame the intel-connected patsy pseudo-gang. Who just so happens to belong to whatever nation the Triad of Hell (Israel/US/UK) happens to be targeting for their resources or strategic military value at the moment. I think the attacks on 9/11 and 7/7 proved this beyond a reasonable doubt now and anyone who still believes otherwise either has interests and benefits with our covert enemy, was just born, cognitively dissonant or is cognitively retarded. In the face of such massive amounts of detailed information and evidence, there can be no other conclusion.

When one reviews Moustapha Akkad's life, knowledge and works, he was a threat. Definitely to the Zionists in particular, but also to the Triad of Hell, who were seeking to incite hatred and enmity against Muslims, Islam and Semitic peoples. You simply cannot tolerate any influence counter to this agenda and Akkad had in his heart and mind to decimate these negative Arab stereotypes and educate the world to the realities of Islam, Muslims and Arabic citizens. His projected film 'Saladin', in which a courageous leader fights off a military crusade was just a little too close to current affairs. Its potential impact and influence contrary to the virulent state and media generated propaganda geared towards turning minds to hatred, intolerance and war for "freedom". It is completely within the realm of possibility that Akkad at the Grand Hyatt was a target of opportunity. The main targets were Major-General Bashir Nafeh, the head of Palestinian military intelligence in the West Bank, Colonel Abed Allun, a high-ranking Palestinian Preventive Security forces official, Jihad Fatouh, the commercial attaché at the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo, and Mosab Khorma, a senior Palestinian-American banker and former Paltel CEO. This is red flag number two, as it is now well-documented that the Mossad regularly targets high-profile Palestinians for assassination abroad. Also killed during the terror bombing at the Grand Hyatt were three Chinese delegates of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) who may have met with the Palestinian officials. Their deaths prompted a dispatch of an investigating 'working group', composed of officials from the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from China. A bit much for seemingly innocuous delegates visiting in Jordan don't you think? In later mainstream media reports, the Chinese delegates were changed, and referred to simply as 'Chinese students'.

Amongst all this unusual and suspicious evidence is the biggest red flag of them all and one that now showcases a familiar pattern with these terrorist attack cases. Wait for it… On the 10th of November, the Los Angeles Times used this quote in an article: "The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that Israelis staying at the Radisson on Wednesday had been evacuated before the attacks and escorted back home "apparently due to a specific security threat." Amos N. Guiora, a former senior Israeli counter-terrorism official, said in a phone interview with The L.A. Times that sources in Israel had also told him about the pre-attack evacuations. "It means there was excellent intelligence that this thing was going to happen," said Guiora, a former leader of the Israel Defense Forces who now heads the Institute for Global Security Law and Policy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "The question that needs to be answered is why weren't the Jordanians working at the hotel similarly removed?" If Israelis were warned and evacuated at the Radisson prior to the attack, then you can best bank on the fact that they were also at the Day's Inn and Grand Hyatt. The story originally printed in Ha'aretz ran: ''Scores Dead in Three Amman Hotel Bombings; Israelis Evacuated Before Attack" - By Yoav Stern and Zohar Blumenkrantz." Also, the attacks were categorised as suicide bombings, however Jordanian police sources told Reuters that they were bombs previously planted. In the case of the Radisson, police stated that it was a bomb planted in a false ceiling.

Brandon Lee

(February 1, 1965 - March 31, 1993)

To begin, this post will be longer than standard to accommodate some aspects of this case that need exposition. For a sudden death, shrouded in mystery of a high profile individual to occur is unusual. For another death to occur to yet another in ones family, to someone so young, and under equally mysterious circumstances, is frankly improbable. I knew it was when I had first heard the radio blare out that Brandon Lee was dead, then when I examined the means and evidence, I knew that this was no accident.

Brandon Lee was a man trying to negotiate contradictions and questions in finding his own path in this life. His Eurasian ancestry made life challenging for him at times, as he sought to find his identity within two worlds of the East, and the West. Not finding home in either, he amalgamated them instead and forged his own path. This, was also compounded also by unreasonable expectations on him to walk in his fathers shoes and bear his mantle. Brandon however cut his own way, on his own terms, following a destiny that he created from the shadow of his father the great Bruce Lee. 

In life Brandon Lee seemed like just another actor striving to become an action hero, using his parents fame as a launching pad, but he was actually much more than that. He was deep, introspective, contemplative and stridently individual. He was his father's son and had in him that same fire, that same unidentifiable quality that made him a burgeoning extra-ordinary individual. It's said that the assumed elite don't terminally neutralise people for who they are, but their power to inspire, influence and lead through their personality. We are all tested everyday in the different levels of our life and this testing gains rewards and punishments. The chap who wants to sincerely change the world doesn't get the CEO's position, or any position to effect that change. There are mechanisms in place, and strategically placed human gatekeepers to ensure that the status quo remains exactly that way. However, every once in a while there are those from amongst the masses who shine and transcend their station. They are exalted into celebrity through their personality, their talents and how they relate to the masses and represent them. Thus they bypass the system when their popularity amongst the masses elevates them to grassroots celebrity. This is why a Bono Vox of U2, the quisling bootblack of the elite could never rise to the level of stature of a John Lennon, though he fancies himself as such. Lennon spent his mature life fighting, financially supporting progressive causes and promoting revolutionary ideals. Bono however sucks off the elite, advances their degenerative policies and acts as a vanguard frontman for their twisted agendas. Lennon was murdered for his beliefs, Bono was promoted and rewarded because of his double-agent acting and crypto fealty. 

The media personality that reveals the truth publicly on Israel's war crimes gets immediate ostracisation, ridicule and attack. People join Freemasons, satanic cults and secret societies for the networking opportunities, to get closer to the assumed elite, to get the immunity from prosecution, and other assorted gang perks that come with being a connected predator. The woman who openly pontificates on 9-11 being an inside job at the workplace won't get that promotion, but the man on the radio who does the same and conveniently excises Israel's criminal enterprises is left to prosper unmolested in any way. Brandon, much like Peter Tosh, Bill Hicks, Jacob Miller and others didn't pass the test for one reason or another. They were profiled, vetted, surveilled, tested and assessed for whether they would act as tools for the furtherance of the diabolical agenda or hinderance to it.

Brandon Lee began to rise in popularity due to his down-to-earth persona and martial arts acumen, he had a broad appeal that the masses were able to gravitate to. Just like his father, he portrayed characters who were the common man fighting back against injustice. It was in his last film The Crow where he truly displayed the person he had become. The Crow was not a normal film, it was dark sure but the production values contained serious satanic overtones to those with trained eyes. Originally the Crow was originally a series of American comic-books by James O'Barr, that told a powerful and moving tale of love, resurrection and solemn vengeance. Though dark and realistically brutal, it contained no occult or satanic trappings whatsoever. When Hollywood picked it up as a creative property and produced it, it became a wholly different production, and there was clearly someone with satanised knowledge consulting. Watch the film closely and you'll see what I mean, Druidic rune graffiti adorned the urban set of Detroit which was not at all relevant to the locale. The satanic colours of red and black figure prominently in nightmarish flashback sequences throughout the film. The main villain "Top Dollar" and his witch sister/girlfriend Myca were explicitly satanic in dress and practises. The night The Crow is resurrected is Devil's Night, the night before Halloween. There is much more defining demon-friendly ambiance and accoutrements in the film than I will explore here. Suffice to say, the production setup looked as if it was unusually conducive to a ritualised murder.  

On March 31, 1993, during the filming of The Crow on set in Wilmington, North Carolina, Brandon Lee was shot with a live round, .44 calibre bullet from a Magnum disturbingly dubbed "Funboy". It was three takes into the scene where Lee was to walk in on his fiancée being sexually assaulted by street psychopaths. Actor Michael Massee in the role of the chief punk 'Funboy', was to point the weapon in the direction but not directly at Brandon Lee. The magnum was to be aimed at an angle that only appears to be pointed at an intended screen victim. This is standard practise in proper film production, that everyone on the set handling weapons are to explicitly treat blanks as live rounds. Corroborated by Wilmington Police reports, Massee had whirled the Magnum about wildly overhead, then levelling the gun at Brandon and firing. Brandon was hit in his abdomen 3 inches to the lateral right of his navel and went down bleeding profusely from major, irreparable internal damage. He immediately fell into unconsciousness and was dead three minutes afterwards. Despite arriving at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center D.O.A., doctors worked to attempt resuscitation for over 5 hours. An oddity that I find of note, as why work on someone who is literally dead for that amount of time? Unless, perhaps Brandon wasn't actually dead on arrival as reported.

So what we have is a live .44 calibre round placed into a Magnum, that wasn't supposed to be, aimed directly at Lee and fired, killing him. A police investigation throttled from on high of a contaminated crime scene and District Attorney Jerry Spivey labelling the crime near immediately as an accident. There were three separate film takes of the scene where Brandon Lee was murdered, and the 'Funboy' Magnum was fired twice successfully, before the fatal round. The evidential implication is that the gun DID NOT have a dummy bullet accidentally lodged in the chamber as the official story contends. For if it was it would have most assuredly have been flung out while Massee was waving it wildly about, or have been dislodged when fired during the previous two takes. What this clearly does indicate is that a live round was deliberately inserted into the handgun calculatingly and with malice aforethought. Or perhaps a replica of the 'Funboy' Magnum was swapped in and handed to Massey during the third take? That would clearly implicate the gun prop handlers Bruce Merlin, Charlene Hamer or Daniel Kuttner. 

A North Carolina Hanover County deputy reported one alarming fact, that was never followed up on. An unidentified Asian-American extra, was on the set and positioned himself with the gun prop team, by expressing his love for guns and obsession with the martial arts film genre. He volunteered to clean the set weapons and expressed that he had travelled from New York City expressly to come down for the filming of "The Crow". The extra was never formerly questioned, nor his true identity discovered as suspiciously the Crowvision Inc. movie company time sheets were found to be conveniently missing. Also, the mysterious Asian-American person of interest left the film set after Lee's shooting and never returned. One piece of evidence that would depict exactly what happened would be the actual film footage of the Lee shooting. Unfortunately that is not possible due to District Attorney Jerry Spivey ordering all evidence sealed, and the judge in Linda Lee Cadwell's (Brandon's mother) subsequent lawsuit ordered all the video footage destroyed.

Below are some additional unsettling occult aspects, and new evidence to consider in this case:

• In the film, Eric Draven and his fiancée Shelly Webster, who play about with occult gothism, are targeted, tortured, and murdered on the night of October 30th, Devils Night. It occurred 3 hours before midnight, on the night before their wedding that was scheduled to occur on October 31, Halloween. I is during the filming of this particular scene that Brandon Lee was shot and killed.

• 11 minutes of the original shooting of The Crow were deleted as prior to it's deletion the film apparently received an X rating by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA).

• The main villain Top Dollar and his sister/girlfriend are generational satanists whom employ ritual sacrifice as a means to secure personal power.

A bit of ritual mutilation with an Athame

Victim's eyeball burning in ritual device

Ritually breathing in the smoking remains

• There is a scene in the film following Eric Draven's resurrection as The Crow, where he is climbing up a building and to his right is depicted an all-seeing eye with the words TAMISRA above it in shadows. Tamisra in ancient East Indian texts is one of 28 Hells and defined as: Tamisra Hell. Who goes to this hell? A man who takes way the wealth of others by fraud, or kidnaps the child or wife of another by force, are the ones who go to this particular hell. Why is this particular scene embedded in this film?

The phrase TAMISRA above an All-Seeing Eye

• The band in the movie playing during the henchman Skank's death was called 'My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult' an industrial dance group known for their sleazy satanoid themes. 

• The final fight scene is shot in an abandoned church, which in the real world cult cases, are known to be used by satanic cults for their denigrative ritual value.

Find anything of satanic interest in this shot? 

• In the final rooftop of the church fight scene, The Crow character receives a Katana blade sword thrust into his back and the blade protrudes exactly where Brandon Lee was shot by a .44 calibre bullet. The autopsy reported that his bullet wound was three inches to the lateral right of his navel, examine the picture and tell me what you see. Since the film was completed after Brandon's murder on the set, I find it more than a bit odd that they arranged this macabre scene by accident. It's more like a twisted 'Revelation of the Method', in-your-face, ritualised mocking to eyes sharp enough to spot it.

Brandon Lee as "The Crow" receiving a sword thrust 

that exits out at the exact location of the bullet wound 
site which killed him during earlier filming. 

That's just coincidence though right?

                     * Update 8, January 2012 *                           

Today I was watching Bruce Lee's posthumous final film The Game of Death. I had seen the film many years ago, and quite a number of times, though not with the same investigative eyes or mind. What struck me is one particular scene in the movie where a rather poor imitation Bruce Lee's character named Billy Lo is being stalked and warned of consequences for not capitulating to the threats of an entertainment industry syndicate. When they fail in their pathetic multiple attempts to physically coerce him they decide to finally kill him off. How you may ask? The syndicate sends one of their thugs to the set of a film where Billy Lo is filming a final scene that involves a firing squad type shooting of the character he's portraying. The hitman named Stick infiltrates himself amongst the other actors preparing to shoot at Billy Lo as just he jumps in the air. Just as in the final scene of Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection) where the hero named Chen Zen is murdered with a volley of treacherous gunfire. The assassin 'Stick' crouches just as the director walks up and gives final instructions whilst passing out blank cartridges to their weapons. He states Gentlemen, these are blanks. Only aim upward. There's a wad of paper that comes out and can injure someone.", As the director passes out the cartridges, the hitman 'Stick' quickly changes his blank out, inserting a real bullet into his .38 calibre revolver. The director shouts "Action!" and as soon as Billy Lo runs and leaps in the air, the stuntmen fire and 'Stick' shoots billy in the face. Needless to say Billy survives his facial injury and gets his revenge.

What has this to do with Brandon Lee? Well, The Game of Death was released in 1978 and 15 years later, Brandon's shooting (read: murder) on the set shooting a scene for his final film the Crow, mirrors the exact assassination scenario portrayed in The Game of Death. Down to having real ammunition substituted for blanks and murder under the cover of an on-set movie shoot. The only difference is that in Brandon's case, the plot was followed full course to his ritually staged demise. Dismissed as a "tragic accident" or a laughable Chinese family curse, which of course are the prepared cover stories. Coincidence in the course of criminal investigation is a red flag, and it can hardly be accepted at face value during the course of proper crime analysis. In fact in terms of calculated criminal conspiracies, nothing plays better to obfuscate a crime like orchestrated coincidences. Believe enough convenient cover stories, and soon you'll start swallowing horseshit like 19 hijackers standing down NORAD to crash planes into buildings, "terrorist" attacks on Iraqi civilians every time the US mouths their intentions to pull troops, or Alleged Palestinian rockets stamped with conspicuous Hebrew writing" fired into Israel that produce infinitesimal amounts of alleged casualties and next to no damage. You see coincidence and cognitive dissonance are forever entwined with one another. For together they produce an opportune exit door when truth becomes too scary to deal with. The escape artists retreat for those who embrace fairytales for mass consumption as a lifestyle choice.

It is completely within the realm of plausibility that the same engineers behind the premature death of Bruce Lee, were the very self-same interests also behind the staged murder of his son, for it seems they both represented a similar threat. What better twisted pathology than to commit it in such a mocking manner that it leaves such an obvious a point of evidence. The revelation of the method, set in quite plain view before our very eyes and I'm only sorry I didn't pick up on it until just now.