Secret Briefing by Zinni Seen as Key In Aipac Duo Trial
from The Jewish Daily Forward :
http://www.forward.com/articles/secret-briefing-by-zinni-seen-as-key-in-aipac-duo/
Nathan Guttman Fri. Mar 30, 2007
Washington - New details are emerging about a secret
2003 briefing that could play a key role in the
defense of two pro-Israel advocates charged with
passing classified information.
Until now, the identities of the participants were
not publicly known, except for one of the defendants,
Steve Rosen, then policy director of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee. In recent weeks,
however, the Forward has confirmed that the meeting
featured a briefing delivered by top Middle East
peace envoy Anthony Zinni and was attended by Jess
Hordes, head of the Washington office of the
Anti-Defamation League, and Dan Mariaschin, executive
vice president of B'nai B'rith International.
Defense lawyers have sought the testimony of those
in attendance to demonstrate to the jury that
meetings between administration officials and Jewish
representatives were common practice, and that
intelligence was frequently shared during these
powwows without the participants knowing the
information was classified. But, as first reported
in the Forward last month, the Jewish representatives
who attended the meeting are refusing to cooperate
with the defense team.
Hordes and Mariaschin refused to comment for this
story, and the identity of the third Jewish
representative who is refusing to testify could not
be confirmed.
In Zinni, the defense team would be turning to a
harsh critic of both the Iraq War and
neoconservatives at the Pentagon, who according to
Zinni thought the invasion would stabilize American
interests in the Middle East and strengthen Israel's
position.
"I think it's the worst-kept secret in Washington.
That everybody - everybody I talk to in
Washington - has known and fully knows what their
agenda was and what they were trying to do," said
Zinni in a May 2004 interview with the CBS News
program "60 Minutes."
At the meeting with the Jewish representatives,
Zinni discussed the situation in the Middle East and
attempts by the Bush administration to promote the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process, according to
sources familiar with the prosecution's account of
the meeting. The sources said that Zinni "spoke very
freely" and that he revealed information that was not
available to the general public.
The next day, Rosen, who had represented Aipac at the
meeting, informed his superiors at the pro-Israel
lobby about the information supplied by Zinni.
At the time, Rosen was already under FBI surveillance
and his conversations about the meeting with Zinni
were monitored. They later appeared in documents
presented by the prosecution once Rosen and the other
defendant in the case, Aipac's Iran specialist, Keith
Weissman, were indicted.
According to sources close to the case, the Jewish
participants in the meeting are refusing to cooperate
on the advice of their organizations' respective
legal advisers, who recommend steering clear of the
proceedings.
Sources close to the defense expressed disappointment
over the reluctance of the Jewish groups to testify.
These sources describe it as another sign of the
decision by Jewish organizations to distance
themselves from the case. One source close to the
defense described the response of the Jewish
community to the prosecution of the two former senior
Aipac staffers as "abandonment," and said that many
Jewish officials and organizations cut off all ties
to the defendants after the case was made public.
The U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., will make
a decision later this month regarding the
government's request to keep the trial closed and not
to allow the public or press to see the evidence or
to listen to wiretapping recordings that will be the
central pieces of evidence in the case. In a hearing
last month, Judge T.S. Ellis III said that no
precedent exists for such a request. The judge
ordered both sides to prepare arguments for a
pretrial hearing on the issue, which is scheduled for
mid-April.
If the prosecution's request for a closed trial is
denied, the government will be asked to prepare
redacted versions of the evidence to be presented in
the courtroom.
This article linked from: antiwar.com
(as are many posts seen in this NG)
http://www.forward.com/articles/secret-briefing-by-zinni-seen-as-key-in-aipac-duo/
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