Lis­ten: MP3  Side 1  Side 2

REALAUDIO

Intro­duc­tion: Tack­ling an impor­tant but lit­tle known sub­ject, this broad­cast high­lights the tiny Euro­pean king­dom of Liecht­en­stein. Despite hav­ing a pop­u­la­tion of just over 30,000, this “con­sti­tu­tion­al” monar­chy is an epi­cen­ter of mon­ey-laun­der­ing and high-lev­el finan­cial maneu­ver­ing, as well as some of the ills that come with that activ­i­ty. Ter­ror­ist financ­ing, drug traf­fick­ing and relat­ed activ­i­ties com­prise much of the eco­nom­ic liveli­hood of the pop­u­la­tion. After review­ing the role of Liecht­en­stein in the Alfa/Crown Russ­ian cor­po­rate and orga­nized crime nexus and the principality’s tem­po­rary evo­lu­tion into an absolute monar­chy under the stew­ard­ship of Prince Hans-Adam II, the pro­gram exam­ines the close rela­tion­ship of the country’s rul­ing fam­i­ly to the Haps­burg dynasty. The Haps­burgs, like many of the oth­er roy­al fam­i­lies of Europe, sided with the Axis pow­ers in World War II and con­tin­ue to man­i­fest fas­cist sym­pa­thies and alliances—tendencies that may be present in the fam­i­ly of Hans-Adam as well. Deeply involved with hedge funds and with access to the impor­tant cap­i­tal cen­ters of cen­tral Europe, the roy­al fam­i­ly main­tains a tight aura of secre­cy sur­round­ing their invest­ment busi­ness. Hans-Adam II has also financed aca­d­e­m­ic think tanks that bear a strik­ing sim­i­lar­i­ty to some of the NGO’s that occu­py a promi­nent posi­tion in the con­tem­po­rary covert oper­a­tions land­scape. The pro­gram con­cludes with dis­cus­sion of the close coop­er­a­tion between the Swiss finan­cial sec­tor and Liecht­en­stein, as well as an illic­it traf­fic in human organs and blood prod­ucts oper­at­ed out of the law office of Nor­bert Seeger, who heads the Cit­i­zens’ Pro­gres­sive Par­ty of Liecht­en­stein. That par­ty served as a front for the assump­tion of absolute pow­er by the prince for a peri­od of sev­er­al years, begin­ning in 2001.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Review of the links of the Liecht­en­stein roy­al fam­i­ly to the Al Taqwa/Muslim Broth­er­hood milieu that financed Al Qae­da and Hamas; the involve­ment of a Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty think tank financed by Hans-Adam II with areas of Islamist activ­i­ty in Europe and South­west Asia; dis­cus­sion of the pos­si­ble role of Liecht­en­stein in the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work; the mar­riage of Karl von Haps­burg (heir to the Haps­burg throne) to the daugh­ter of Hein­rich Thyssen-Borne­misza, one of the prin­ci­pal fig­ures in the Bor­mann cap­i­tal milieu; Prince Hans-Adam’s demand that the Czech Repub­lic reim­burse Liecht­en­stein for prop­er­ty con­fis­cat­ed after World War II; Liechtenstein’s role in shel­ter­ing Russ­ian Cos­sacks who fought with the Nazis in World War II.

1. The broad­cast begins with review of an excerpt from FTR#530 dis­cussing the role of Liecht­en­stein in an appar­ent Under­ground Reich net­work involved in the events of 9/11. A prin­ci­pal ele­ment in that dis­cus­sion was the Crown/Alfa group, a Russ­ian con­glom­er­ate with a fel­low­ship pro­gram spon­sored by the Carl Duis­berg Gesellschaft. One of the prin­ci­pal fig­ures in the Crown/Alfa net­work is Dr. Nor­bert Seeger, about whom we will more below.

“ . . . 30. Dr. Nor­bert Seeger; Rech­tan­swalt, Vaduz [Liechtenstein]—Information includes: Knowl­edge of facts per­tain­ing to role of Crown Finance Foun­da­tion and oth­er Crown enti­ties in mon­ey laun­der­ing and tax eva­sion activ­i­ties. . . .”

(From the legal doc­u­ments in a lawsuit—“Rule 26 Ini­tial Dis­clo­sures; UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT; SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK; NOREX PETROLEUM LIMITED No. 02 Civ. 1499 (LTS)(KNF); Plain­tiff v. ACCESS INDUSTRIES, INC.; Et. Al. Defen­dants; PLAINTIFF’S RULE 26(a)(1) INITIAL DISCLOSURES; 1. INDIVIDUALS LIKELY TO HAVE DISCOVERABLE INFORMATION THAT MAY BE USED TO SUPPORT NOREX’S CLAIMS . . . . A. Indi­vid­u­als Asso­ci­at­ed With Plain­tiff”; p. 8.)

2. A crit­i­cal ele­ment of the dis­cus­sion in FTR#530 con­cerns the tiny prin­ci­pal­i­ty of Liechtenstein—a small Euro­pean coun­try of 32,000 peo­ple, whose prin­ci­pal indus­try is mon­ey laun­der­ing. As we will see, Liecht­en­stein fig­ures sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the events in and around 9/11. In 2001, Prince Hans Adam became (for all intents and pur­pos­es) the only absolute monarch in Europe. This gam­bit was accom­plished through a pop­u­lar ref­er­en­dum, effect­ed under the aus­pices of a front group—the Pro­gres­sive Cit­i­zens Par­ty. The ref­er­en­dum ced­ed to the Prince vir­tu­al­ly all real pow­er. In par­tic­u­lar, he had the abil­i­ty to com­plete­ly con­trol the judi­cial sys­tem, there­by con­trol­ling all legal inves­ti­ga­tions in the country—a par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing and impor­tant pow­er in the very impor­tant year of 2001! This assump­tion of absolute pow­er put Hans Adam in the posi­tion of being able to block or neu­tral­ize any legal inves­ti­ga­tion into any of the finan­cial shenani­gans that tran­spired in Liecht­en­stein, includ­ing 9/11-relat­ed activ­i­ties! As will be seen below, the main busi­ness in this tiny coun­try is mon­ey laun­der­ing.

“ . . . In a ref­er­en­dum in March 23, 64% of vot­ers in Liecht­en­stein approved a mea­sure to give Prince Hans Adam II the pow­er to dis­miss gov­ern­ments, approve judi­cial nom­i­nees and veto laws. It is the most pow­er of any monarch in Europe. Hans Adam had threat­ened to leave the coun­try if the mea­sure was not approved. . . The Prince’s involve­ment in leg­is­la­tion con­sists in a right to take ini­tia­tives in the form of gov­ern­ment bills and in the right to veto par­lia­men­tary pro­pos­als. The Prince has the pow­er to enact prince­ly decrees. Emer­gency prince­ly decrees are pos­si­ble when the secu­ri­ty and wel­fare of the coun­try is at stake. A coun­tersig­na­ture by the head of gov­ern­ment is, nev­er­the­less required. The Prince has the right to con­vene and adjourn par­lia­ment and, for seri­ous rea­sons, to adjourn it for 3 months or to dis­solve it. On the basis of the names put for­ward by Par­lia­ment, the Prince nom­i­nates the gov­ern­ment dis­trict and high court judges, the judges of the Supreme Court, and the pres­i­dents and their deputies of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court and of the Admin­is­tra­tive Court of Appeal. The Prince’s oth­er author­i­ties include exer­cis­ing the right to mit­i­gate and com­mute pun­ish­ments that have been imposed with legal force and the abolition—i.e., the dismissal—of inves­ti­ga­tions that have been ini­ti­at­ed. All judg­ments are issued in the name of the Prince. . . .”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Liechtenstein.

3. The head of Liechtenstein’s Pro­gres­sive Cit­i­zens Par­ty is Nor­bert Seeger—a prin­ci­pal fig­ure in Alfa’s Crown Resources sub­sidiary!! Are the Alfa Group and Liecht­en­stein part of the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work?

“ . . . Since 2001, it has been the Pro­gres­sive Cit­i­zens Par­ty that has pro­vid­ed all the mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment. The minor­i­ty par­ties, as oppo­si­tion par­ties, act as a check on the gov­ern­ment in Par­lia­ment and on par­lia­men­tary com­mis­sions. . . .”

(Idem.)

4. “ . . . Polit­i­cal par­ties and lead­ers: Pro­gres­sive Cit­i­zens’ Par­ty of FBPL. [Nor­bert Seeger]; . . .”

(Idem.)

5. Next, the broad­cast reviews infor­ma­tion from FTR#442. One of the most impor­tant con­nec­tions illus­trat­ed in this pro­gram is the evi­den­tiary trib­u­tary con­nect­ing the Bank Al Taqwa and the roy­al fam­i­ly of Liecht­en­stein. Recall that Bank Al Taqwa is a prin­ci­pal finan­cial source for Al Qae­da and oth­er Mus­lim Broth­er­hood off­shoots. One should not for­get that Al Taqwa itself orig­i­nates from a firm estab­lished in Vaduz, Liechtenstein—that nation’s cap­i­tal. Liecht­en­stein is one of the prin­ci­pal “fun­ny mon­ey” cen­ters of Europe, and a major piv­ot point for the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion. This infor­ma­tion should be eval­u­at­ed against the back­ground of the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed in FTR#’s 352, 357, 359, 377, 378. Those broad­casts high­light the inter­sec­tion between the Al Taqwa milieu and Euro­pean far-right inter­ests, includ­ing the P‑2 and Allean­za Nationale milieu in Italy. These links with pow­er­ful Euro­pean cap­i­tal inter­ests and far-right net­works indi­cate that there is much more going on here than just Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ism. In light of the links between Liecht­en­stein, Crown/Alpha (Nor­bert Seeger) and the Carl Duis­berg Gesellschaft, the Asat Trust/Liechtenstein roy­al fam­i­ly con­nec­tion assumes poten­tial­ly larg­er sig­nif­i­cance. Do the var­i­ous ten­drils of the crea­ture por­trayed in this pro­gram descrip­tion con­sti­tute a Bormann/Underground Reich net­work deeply involved in 9/11?!

“ . . . The pros­e­cu­tion also alleged that [alleged Al Qae­da financier Soli­man] Biheiri is linked to a secre­tive finan­cial net­work in Switzer­land and Liecht­en­stein called Al Taqwa, which Amer­i­can and Euro­pean inves­ti­ga­tors say is a finan­cial backer of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. The Broth­er­hood, often depict­ed as the ide­o­log­i­cal par­ent of most rad­i­cal Islam­ic groups, recent­ly has come under gov­ern­ment scruti­ny for its pos­si­ble direct role in sup­port­ing ter­ror­ism, most promi­nent­ly because of Al Taqwa.”

(“Ter­ror Fund Trail Leads to Alpine King­dom” by Marc Perel­man; For­ward; 10/17/2003.)

6. A brief review of Bank Al Taqwa’s links to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Al Qae­da:

“The Bush admin­is­tra­tion and the Unit­ed Nations have des­ig­nat­ed the Al Taqwa net­work and its main officials—two self-avowed Mus­lim Broth­ers and an admit­ted Nazi sympathizer—as sup­port­ers of Al Qae­da. As a result, their assets have been frozen and they are the focus of a Swiss inves­ti­ga­tion. The Al Taqwa offi­cials have repeat­ed­ly reject­ed the charges. At the [alleged Al Qae­da financier Soli­man] Biheiri deten­tion hear­ing last month, pros­e­cu­tor Steven Ward described Biheiri as the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s ‘finan­cial toe­hold in the U.S.’”

(Idem.)

7. “The pros­e­cu­tion said it had estab­lished links between [alleged Al Qae­da financier Soli­man] Biheiri and the two prin­ci­pals of Al Taqwa, Youssef Nada and Ghaleb Him­mat. Accord­ing to tes­ti­mo­ny from spe­cial agent Kane of the Bureau of Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment, the address­es of Nada and Him­mat were found in Biheiri’s lap­top com­put­er. Kane told the court that there were ‘oth­er indi­ca­tions’ of con­nec­tions between al Taqwa and Biheiri’s com­pa­ny BMI, includ­ing finan­cial trans­ac­tions. . . .”

(Idem.)

8. “. . . One com­pa­ny in the Al Taqwa galaxy that was des­ig­nat­ed by the Unit­ed States and the U.N. as a ter­ror­ist-relat­ed enti­ty is a Liecht­en­stein enti­ty called Asat Trust. Its direc­tor Mar­tin Wachter, told the For­ward this year that Asat Trust oper­ates mere­ly as a reg­istry for busi­ness­es and is not involved in the oper­a­tion of any com­pa­ny. He added that the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment had wrong­ful­ly des­ig­nat­ed Asat Trust as a ter­ror­ist-relat­ed enti­ty because it had once rep­re­sent­ed Al Taqwa in a small real estate deal in Switzer­land.”

(Ibid.; pp. 2–3.)

9. “Still, copies of busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments on file with author­i­ties in Liecht­en­stein show that Asat Trust has been inti­mate­ly involved with the Al Taqwa net­work dur­ing the last 30 years, reg­is­ter­ing changes in com­pa­ny names, per­son­nel and finan­cial struc­ture, which may explain why Asat Trust land­ed on the Amer­i­can and U.N. ter­ror­ist lists.”

(Ibid.; p. 3.)

10. The infor­ma­tion about the Al Taqwa links with the roy­al fam­i­ly of Liecht­en­stein are set forth as fol­lows:

“The records also shed light on the involve­ment of one mem­ber of the roy­al fam­i­ly of Liecht­en­stein in Asat Trust. Accord­ing to the doc­u­ments, deceased Prince Emanuel von und zu Liecht­en­stein became a board mem­ber of Asat Trust in May 1970 and stayed until Novem­ber 1990, when he was replaced by Wachter, the trust’s cur­rent direc­tor. Flo­ri­an Krenkel, a spokesman for the roy­al fam­i­ly, said Prince Emmanuel had died in 1987 and that he was a dis­tant cousin from rul­ing Prince Hans Adam II. . . .”

(Idem.)

11. “ . . . There also appears to be some links between Asat Trust and a bank owned by the Liecht­en­stein roy­al fam­i­ly. Sev­er­al Asat Trust doc­u­ments fea­ture on their let­ter­heads ‘Bank in Liecht­en­stein AG’ beneath ‘Asat Trust.’ The roy­al fam­i­ly bank has changed its name and is now called LGT bank. A tele­phone and an e‑mail query to the bank’s spokesman Hans-Mar­tin Uehringer went unre­turned. . . .”

(Idem.)

12. More about Liecht­en­stein and its mon­ey-laun­der­ing econ­o­my:

“High atop an Alpine ridge sits a prince in a 130-room cas­tle, in a tiny domain that has made a name for itself by hid­ing people’s mon­ey. It has also found a bit more inter­na­tion­al atten­tion than it would like.”

(“The Prince and His Black Sheep: This Is No Liecht­en­stein Fairy Tale” by John Tagli­abue; New York Times 4/8/2000.)

13. Note the ref­er­ences to Liechtenstein’s role in the CDU fund­ing scan­dal. (These are the ref­er­ences to the con­spir­a­cy involv­ing Kohl, the French oil com­pa­ny and the “decrepit oil refin­ery.”) For more about the CDU fund­ing scan­dal, see—among oth­er broad­casts—FTR#’s 193, 276, 278, 506. In FTR#’s 469, 476, we not­ed the links of John P. Schmitz to var­i­ous aspects of the 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tions, as well as his links to the Bush milieu. Schmitz was a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the Robert Bosch Foun­da­tion Fel­low­ship, a sub­sidiary pro­gram (along with the Alfa Fel­low­ship) of the Carl Duis­berg Gesellschaft. Schmitz is an in-law of Jeb Bush (see FTR#533.) When work­ing with the Bun­destag, Schmitz worked with Math­ias Wiss­man, the for­mer trea­sur­er of the CDU! Lat­er, Wiss­man went to work for Wilmer Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing, a law firm that also employed Schmitz and that rep­re­sents key Ger­man gov­ern­ment-linked cor­po­ra­tions in their attempts to move into Amer­i­can mar­kets. (For more about this, see—among oth­er pro­grams—FTR#492.) Again, with the Asat Trust [Al Taqwa] link to the Liecht­en­stein Roy­al Fam­i­ly, the Carl Duis­berg Gesellschaft/Atta/Alfa/Robert Foun­da­tion Fel­low­ship rela­tion­ship, we may well be look­ing at a Bormann/Underground Reich net­work “in the raw.”

“Last year, when Ger­man pros­e­cu­tors inves­ti­gat­ed mil­lions of dol­lars of secret dona­tions to for­mer Chan­cel­lor Hel­mut Kohl, the tail led to Liecht­en­stein, a prin­ci­pal­i­ty the size of Fort Wayne, Ind. When Swiss inves­ti­ga­tors looked into mil­lions of dol­lars of obscure ‘pay­ments’ involv­ing the sale of a decrepit refin­ery to a French oil com­pa­ny, the mon­ey trail also led to Liecht­en­stein. In 1996, when Amer­i­can agents seized a Swiss laun­der­er of Latin Amer­i­can drug prof­its, he con­fessed that he loved to do busi­ness in Liecht­en­stein since its banks nev­er divulged much about its clients.”

(Idem.)

14. “The affa­ble 55-year-old Prince Hans Adam II, whose ances­tors bought the coun­try from the Aus­tri­an crown some three cen­turies ago, sees his nation of 32,000 peo­ple as mere­ly offer­ing bank­ing pri­va­cy and low tax­es. To him, bank secre­cy and wafer-thin tax rates are ser­vices the coun­try just like its dairy prod­ucts and its lead­ing export, den­tal pros­thet­ics.”

(Idem.)

15. “Since many of Europe’s wealthy face income tax rates exceed­ing 50 per­cent, Liecht­en­stein offers a seclud­ed place to squir­rel away their for­tunes. It also has a top income tax rate of just 18.9 per­cent. Tax­es for hold­ing com­pa­nies or enter­pris­es with no more than a mail­box here are a mere 1 per­cent.”

(Idem.)

16. “But those kinds of lures have appar­ent­ly attract­ed some unsa­vory ele­ments. Liechtenstein’s headaches began last Novem­ber, when the Ger­man news­magazine Der Spiegel pub­lished what it said were details of a Ger­man intel­li­gence report that made accu­sa­tions against Liecht­en­stein banks and fiduciaries—specialists in estab­lish­ing mail­box cor­po­ra­tions that are used to mask bank accounts. The enter­pris­es were tied to a Sicil­ian Mafia group, Latin Amer­i­can drug lords and Russ­ian gangs, the report said.”

(Idem.)

17. “The arti­cle also assert­ed that a for­mer Liecht­en­stein prime min­is­ter had assem­bled a net­work of banks, gov­ern­ment work­ers and lawyers to help orga­nized crime. Prince Hans Adam, in an inter­view, accused Ger­many of seek­ing to ruin Liecht­en­stein as a tax haven. To do so, he added, the Ger­mans ‘did not hes­i­tate to com­mit char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion on a coun­try and on indi­vid­ual peo­ple.’ . . .”

(Idem.)

18. Note that the Swiss cur­ren­cy is Liechtenstein’s “coin of the realm”—something that no doubt facil­i­tates the mon­ey laun­der­ing infra­struc­ture in that tiny nation.

“ . . . In 1924, after the col­lapse of the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire fol­low­ing World War I, Liecht­en­stein entered a cus­toms union with Switzer­land, whose cur­ren­cy is the coin of the realm. . . .It is not lost on Liecht­en­stein­ers that while Ger­man gov­ern­ments pil­lo­ry their sys­tem, Ger­man politi­cians use it to hide cam­paign dona­tions. In 1997, a local employ­ee of one influ­en­tial fidu­cia­ry gave Der Spiegel diskettes con­tain­ing con­fi­den­tial client infor­ma­tion. Among Ger­mans stash­ing mon­ey here were not only well-known busi­ness peo­ple and an Olympic gold medal­ist, but also offi­cials of Chan­cel­lor Kohl’s polit­i­cal par­ty, the Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic Union. . . .”

(Idem.)

19. “ . . . Yet when finan­cial inspec­tors from the Coun­cil of Europe vis­it­ed Liecht­en­stein in Sep­tem­ber, they came to very dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions. To lift bank secre­cy, they found that requests must pass 12 appeal lev­els. They also found that the office for inves­ti­gat­ing bank reports of sus­pi­cious mon­ey has five over­worked employ­ees. So to learn where sus­pi­cious mon­ey comes from, the banks sim­ply ask their clients. ‘The exam­in­ers fail to see how ‘tip­ping off’ in such cir­cum­stances can be avoid­ed,’ the inspec­tors polite­ly con­clud­ed in their report.”

(Idem.)

20. “Peter Cson­ka, the team’s sec­re­tary, said Liecht­en­stein had 80,000 trust companies—almost 3 for every citizen—as well as 280 lawyers and 80 trustees, most of whom ‘are in some busi­ness where the pur­pose is not total­ly clear.’ Finan­cial polic­ing, he said, ‘equals zero.’ . . .”

(Idem.)

21. Note the prince’s rel­a­tive immu­ni­ty, as well as his incli­na­tion to use pri­vate audi­tors to “keep the books” for the king­dom. Note that Arthur Ander­sen was the audi­tor that facil­i­tat­ed the Enron rip-off.

“One hur­dle to reform, some say, is the grow­ing polit­i­cal dis­sent between the prince and the gov­ern­ment on mat­ters like con­sti­tu­tion­al reform and law enforce­ment. The prince, for instance, pro­pos­es con­tract­ing over­sight of the bank­ing sys­tem to pri­vate audi­tors, and sug­gests Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers or Arthur Ander­son. ‘I’m a pro­po­nent of out­sourc­ing what­ev­er can be done bet­ter,’ he said. [Empha­sis added.] For his part, Prime Min­is­ter Mario Frick wants the dele­tion of con­sti­tu­tion­al pas­sages assur­ing the prince’s immu­ni­ty. ‘He could steal my car, and I can’t do any­thing about it,’ Mr. Frick said. The prince recent­ly annoyed politi­cians by mail­ing his own pro­pos­als for reform to all house­holds and post­ing them on his Web site: www.fuerstenhaus.li. . . .”

(Idem.)

22. Delv­ing into the nature of the roy­al fam­i­ly of Liecht­en­stein, the pro­gram notes the close­ness between Hans-Adam II’s clan and the Haps­burg dynasty that ruled the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire until the end of World War I.

“LADISLAV KAHOUN: To what degree does your fam­i­ly feel spir­i­tu­al­ly akin to the Haps­burg dynasty? Do you know that in the Czech and Mora­vian aware­ness you were always con­sid­ered the house clos­est to the Haps­burg dynasty? PRINCE HANS-ADAM II: My grand­moth­er was a sis­ter of the Arch­duke Franz Fer­di­nand who was killed in Sara­je­vo. This is per­haps the rea­son why in the Czech and Mora­vian aware­ness the Liecht­en­stein house is con­sid­ered the clos­est to the Haps­burg dynasty. His­tor­i­cal­ly one has to say that the Liecht­en­stein fam­i­ly became a for­eign dynasty with the end of the Holy Roman Empire and were there­fore quite close to the Haps­burg dynasty. A num­ber of those for­eign dynas­ties kept prop­er­ties in the Aus­tri­an-Hun­gar­i­an Empire after 1806 as the Liecht­en­steins did. They were also very often clos­er relat­ed to the Haps­burg dynasty through marriage—just think about Empress Sis­si, the wife of Emper­or Franz Joseph II. . . .”

(Inter­view with Prince Hans-Adam II; www.blisty.cz/art/17123.html.)

23. Not­ing the close affin­i­ty between the roy­al fam­i­ly of Liecht­en­stein and the Haps­burgs, the broad­cast sets forth the fas­cist incli­na­tions of Otto von Haps­burg, the aging patri­arch of that fam­i­ly.

“ . . . The final esca­la­tion was reserved for Otto von Haps­burg, a CSU del­e­gate to the Euro­pean par­lia­ment and the son of the last Aus­tri­an emper­or; since 1973 he has also been pres­i­dent of the ultra-right Pan-Europa-Union and a mem­ber of the Free­dom for Rudolf Hess Com­mit­tee [Empha­sis added.] . . . .”

(The New Reich: Vio­lent Extrem­ism in Uni­fied Ger­many and Beyond; by Michael Schmidt; Copy­right 1993 by Michael Schmidt; Pan­theon Books [HC]; ISBN 0–679-42578–0; p. 137.)

24. Otto von Hapsburg’s son and heir to the Haps­burg throne, Karl von Haps­burg, mar­ried Francesca Thyssen-Borne­misza in the Zagreb (Croa­t­ia) cathe­dral. The Thyssen-Borne­misza fam­i­ly is at the epi­cen­ter of the Thyssen indus­tri­al empire, the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work and the Under­ground Reich. For more about the Thyssen role in the Bor­mann net­work, see—among oth­er pro­grams—FTR#’s 273, 305, 361, 370, 435, 506.

(“Karl von Hab­s­burg;“wikipedia.com.)

25. The fas­cist incli­na­tions of the Haps­burgs are not unique among Euro­pean monar­chi­cal fam­i­lies. “It is more than eerie. A dis­turb­ing side­bar to the polit­i­cal cul­ture of these restora­tions was how many of the would-be mon­archs, roy­al hous­es, and sup­port­ing fac­tions had been on the fas­cist side in World War II. Italy’s House of Savoy ws ban­ished in part for back­ing Mus­soli­ni and sup­port­ing his 1938 race laws, tar­get­ing Jews. In Bul­gar­ia, Simeon’s House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha fought through much of the war as an ally of Nazi Ger­many. The Ser­bian fac­tions back­ing the poten­tial Alexan­der II evoked mem­o­ries of World War II mas­sacres and eth­nic bat­tles still com­mem­o­rat­ed after six hun­dred years. The Roman­ian House of Hohen­zollern-Sig­marin­gen, sup­port­ed by the Iron Guard move­ment that blend­ed rur­al East­ern Ortho­dox reli­gion with folk­ish nation­al­ism, fought most of World War II on Hitler’s side.” (Amer­i­can Dynasty: Aris­toc­ra­cy, For­tune, and the Pol­i­tics of Deceit in the House of Bush; by Kevin Philips; Viking [HC]; Copy­right 2004 by Kevin Phillips; ISBN 0–670-03264–6; pp. 63–64.)

26. “Unfair as it may be to lump togeth­er the Hous­es of Karad­jord­je­vic, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Savoy, and Honen­zollern-Sig­marin­gen, they sug­gest the dark side of the glob­al polit­i­cal force that has buoyed dynasty and restora­tion. The anal­o­gy to the Eng­lish-speak­ing nations is obvi­ous­ly lim­it­ed, but the caveats can­not be entire­ly ignored. And now, we must turn to the dif­fer­ent encour­age­ment giv­en to aristophil­ia dur­ing the 1980’s and 1990’s by eco­nom­ic forces. . . .”

(Ibid.; p. 64.)

27. In the con­text of the fas­cist incli­na­tions of many of Europe’s roy­al fam­i­lies, the pro­gram exam­ines Liechtenstein’s shel­ter­ing of Russ­ian Cos­sacks who had fought for the Third Reich. In light of the Liecht­en­stein roy­al family’s devout Roman Catholi­cism, one must seri­ous­ly con­sid­er that this act of “mer­cy” may have been yet anoth­er exam­ple of Vatican/fascist col­lab­o­ra­tion in aid­ing the escape and resus­ci­ta­tion of pro-Axis forces in the wake of World War II. (For more about the Vatican/fascist axis, see—among oth­er pro­grams—AFA#’s 17–21—avail­able from Spit­fire, as well as FTR#532.)

“ . . .LADISLAV KAHOUN: A piece of infor­ma­tion that in the end of WWII, sev­er­al thou­sand Cos­sacks fight­ing on the side of the Ger­mans escaped to Liecht­en­stein appeared recent­ly in a dis­cus­sion on the Nev­iditel­ny pes serv­er. The allies then alleged­ly entered your coun­try and hand­ed them over to the Sovi­et Union. Did the allies vio­late your neu­tral­i­ty at that time? PRINCE HANS-ADAM II: The allies did not vio­late our neu­tral­i­ty at the end of World War II. The Russ­ian troops fight­ing on the side of the Ger­mans against the com­mu­nists were dis­armed when they crossed the bor­der into Liecht­en­stein. Despite strong pres­sure from the Sovi­et Union, Liecht­en­stein refused to hand over those peo­ple against their will and accept­ed them as refugees accord­ing to inter­na­tion­al law. Those who want­ed to return were either exe­cut­ed or sent to the Gulag by the Sovi­et author­i­ties. As far as I know Liecht­en­stein was the only coun­try who refused to hand over Russ­ian troops fight­ing on the Ger­man side to the Sovi­et author­i­ties against their will. . . .”

(Inter­view with Prince Hans-Adam II; accessed at: http://www.blisty.cz/art/17123.html.)

28. In eval­u­at­ing the pol­i­tics of the roy­al fam­i­ly of Liecht­en­stein, it is note­wor­thy that Prince Hans-Adam II has sup­port­ed an effort to have the Czech Repub­lic reim­burse Liecht­en­stein for prop­er­ties con­fis­cat­ed at the end of World War II.

“LADISLAV KAHOUN: Accord­ing to the above-men­tioned arti­cle, pub­lished the BBC Czech ser­vice, this means that each Czech cit­i­zen would have to pay CZK 2,000 if the claims con­cern­ing your finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion should be met. WWII took place near­ly six­ty years ago and most Czech cit­i­zens remem­ber nei­ther the war nor the con­fis­ca­tion based on Pres­i­dent Benes’ decrees. And need­less to say, they have not par­tic­i­pat­ed in con­fis­cat­ing the prop­er­ty. Do you con­sid­er it just that the cur­rent Czech cit­i­zens should set­tle such a huge amount of mon­ey even though they par­tic­i­pat­ed in no way on the events you base your claim on? PRINCE HANS-Adam II: This ques­tion has already been answered by the answer to ques­tion 5. . . .”

(Idem.)

29. Next, the pro­gram turns to the enor­mous eco­nom­ic clout of the Liecht­en­stein roy­al fam­i­ly. Their lit­tle mon­ey-laun­der­ing king­dom is the per­fect seat for the enor­mous invest­ments they con­trol. Hans-Adam and his fam­i­ly con­trol LGT Cap­i­tal, a major investor in hedge funds, includ­ing LTCM (the focal point of the hedge fund cri­sis of the late 1990’s.)

“ . . . Liechtenstein’s Prince Hans-Adam II made his first for­ay into hedge funds by invest­ing in Long Term Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment LP. Instead of retreat­ing when LTCM col­lapsed in 1998, his fam­i­ly firm, LGT Cap­i­tal Part­ners, put $2.5 bil­lion more into such funds—including mon­ey from out­side investors. In all, LGT Cap­i­tal has swept $6 bil­lion for invest­ment in buy­out firms and hedge funds, unreg­u­lat­ed invest­ment pools that bet on falling as well as ris­ing prices. Unlike roy­als who devote their time to cer­e­monies and char­i­ties, Prince Hans-Adam, 60, heads the foun­da­tion that owns LGT Group, par­ent of LGT Cap­i­tal.”

(“Liechtenstein’s Prince Helps Lure $2.5 Bil­lion to Hedge Funds” [Bloomberg]; accessed at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=aZb8tZAL9GWA.)

30. “ ‘Prince Hans-Adam is unique in run­ning this kind of busi­ness,’ says Bob Hous­ton, edi­tor of Roy­al­ty Month­ly mag­a­zine in Lon­don. ‘He’s the only one who has a prop­er job.’ LGT Capital’s hedge-fund busi­ness, which reduces risk by spread­ing its mon­ey among mul­ti­ple funds, helped the firm pros­per when Hans-Adam bat­tled par­lia­ment for more pow­er and police probed alle­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing in the coun­try of 34,000 peo­ple. Now LGT is push­ing to expand. [Empha­sis added. Note: that was in 2001, when probes into Liechtenstein’s mon­ey-laun­der­ing busi­ness might have revealed some of the 9/11-relat­ed networks—D.E.]. . .”

(Idem.)

31. “ . . . The House of Liecht­en­stein, which has ruled the coun­try for almost 300 years, formed LGT Cap­i­tal to man­age the family’s mon­ey, and first accept­ed out­side funds in 1996. The firm uses the slo­gan ‘invest­ing like the prince’ on its Web site and offers clients the chance to put their mon­ey in the so-called Prince­ly Port­fo­lio. ‘They are very cred­i­ble and quite suc­cess­ful,’ says Joe Seet, a part­ner at Sig­ma Part­ner­ship, a hedge-fund con­sult­ing firm in Lon­don.”

(Idem.)

32. Note the secre­cy that accom­pa­nies LGT Capital’s enor­mous clout. Is this firm part of the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work?

“The firm’s ties to the roy­al fam­i­ly have helped it win clients among wealthy fam­i­lies from Scan­di­navia to Switzer­land and Aus­tria, says Jacob Schmidt, a direc­tor at Allen­bridge Group Plc in Lon­don, which pro­vides research on fund man­agers. ‘The fam­i­ly has access to all the seri­ous mon­ey in cen­tral Europe,’ Schmidt says. He declined to iden­ti­fy any of LGT Capital’s clients. Thomas Weber, 43, a part­ner at LGT Cap­i­tal, also declined to name any indi­vid­u­als who invest with the firm. . . .”

(Idem.)

33. A recent endow­ment by Hans-Adam II to Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty estab­lished an aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tute that will con­cen­trate on areas that have been major focal points of Islamist activity—Chechnya, Koso­vo and the Balka­ns, and Kash­mir. Is this insti­tu­tion a think tank that will work as part of a NGO covert oper­a­tions milieu? Does this insti­tu­tion, in effect, con­sti­tute anoth­er link of the Liecht­en­stein roy­al fam­i­ly to Islamists (like the Asat Trust dis­cussed above)?

“A $12 mil­lion gift to Prince­ton from Prince Hans-Adam II of Liecht­en­stein will cre­ate the Liecht­en­stein Insti­tute on Self-Deter­mi­na­tion, which will serve as a cen­ter for research and teach­ing on issues of self-deter­mi­na­tion around the world. The gift will expand the University’s exist­ing Liecht­en­stein Research Pro­gram on Self-Deter­mi­na­tion, which also has been fund­ed by Prince Hans-Adam II. It will enable Prince­ton fac­ul­ty, stu­dents and out­side experts to expand their work and embark on wide-rang­ing new projects in such places as Koso­vo, Kash­mir, and Chech­nya. [Empha­sis added.]”

(“$12 Mil­lion Gift Estab­lish­es Insti­tute”; accessed at: http://www.princeton,edu/pr/pwb/00/0925/lc.shtml.)

34. “As a bridge between acad­e­mia and the prac­ti­cal world, the Liecht­en­stein Insti­tute will engage both in fun­da­men­tal research and in a prac­ti­cal search for solu­tions to real-world prob­lems. ‘By cre­at­ing a non-polem­i­cal envi­ron­ment for research and dis­cus­sion, we hope to help reduce the tumul­tuous and fre­quent­ly vio­lent process inher­ent in the search for increased auton­o­my,’ said Wolf­gang Danspeck­gru­ber [a nice Anglo-Sax­on name—D.E.], a lec­tur­er in the Woodrow Wil­son School of Pub­lic and Inter­na­tion­al Affairs and the found­ing direc­tor of the new insti­tute. He believes the insti­tute can advance com­pro­mis­es that rec­og­nize com­mu­ni­ty auton­o­my with­in exist­ing states along with region­al inte­gra­tion, pre­vent­ing seces­sion in all but the most extreme cas­es.”

(Idem.)

35. “Researchers at the insti­tute are begin­ning work on three major projects. An ini­tia­tive launched in June by Danspeck­gru­ber and Stephen Kotkin, direc­tor of the Russ­ian Stud­ies Pro­gram, is explor­ing state pow­er, bor­ders and self-gov­er­nance in the for­mer Sovi­et Union. The project is expect­ed to con­clude with find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions pre­sent­ed at a major con­fer­ence in 2001. In the sec­ond project, which is also sup­port­ed by a grant from the Carnegie Cor­po­ra­tion of New York, researchers will devel­op strate­gies to pre­vent and man­age crises of self-deter­mi­na­tion. This project brings togeth­er Danspeck­gru­ber, Michael Doyle, direc­tor of the Cen­ter of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies, Jef­frey Herb­st, chair of the Depart­ment of Pol­i­tics; and Gilbert Roz­man, pro­fes­sor of soci­ol­o­gy.”

(Idem.)

36. “In the third project, researchers will search for solu­tions to the prob­lem in Kash­mir, where sep­a­ratist groups have mount­ed an 11-year strug­gle against Indi­an rule. Pre­dom­i­nant­ly Mus­lim Kash­mir has been the main point of con­flict between India and Pak­istan since the par­ti­tion of India in 1947. At the same time, the insti­tute will con­tin­ue to work to assist in find­ing a peace­ful solu­tion for con­flict in the Balka­ns. An inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence eval­u­at­ing the impli­ca­tions of self-deter­mi­na­tion at the begin­ning of the 21st cen­tu­ry is planned for the com­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year, Danspeck­gru­ber said. . . . The insti­tute is an out­growth of the Liecht­en­stein Research Pro­gram on Self-Deter­mi­na­tion, which was cre­at­ed in 1994 and sup­port­ed by Prince Hans-Adam II. . . .”

(Idem.)

37. The pro­gram con­cludes with exam­i­na­tion of an alleged illic­it human organ and blood smug­gling net­work run out of the law firm of Nor­bert Seeger, who is dis­cussed above. Seeger is the head of the front group for the roy­al family—the Pro­gres­sive Cit­i­zens Par­ty. [Note that the “freere­pub­lic” web­site has much right-wing and even fas­cist pro­pa­gan­da post­ed on it. It should not be giv­en face-val­ue cred­i­bil­i­ty, although it does fea­ture the re-post­ings of some impor­tant arti­cles and is, there­fore, some­what use­ful as a raw source of infor­ma­tion.)

“For the first time some­one has come for­ward with details, includ­ing the names of com­pa­nies and go-betweens that clear­ly estab­lish how Liecht­en­stein has become a mon­ey-laun­der­ing cap­i­tal. Marie-Gabrielle Koller, who holds dou­ble Aus­tri­an and Cana­di­an cit­i­zen­ship and worked in Liecht­en­stein law firm between 1993–1996, has denounced the sys­tem from with­in, as it were. In a long state­ment, the young women accused her own firm of hav­ing set up off­shore com­pa­nies to facil­i­tate a trade in untest­ed blood prod­ucts and human organs.”

(“New Accu­sa­tions Against Liecht­en­stein”; Intel­li­gence Newslet­ter: THREAT ASSESSMENT; MONEY LAUNDERING; 6/1/2000. Accessed at: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b6fe1bb12a8.htm.)

38. “Accord­ing to Intel­li­gence Newslet­ter sources, her report under­lined the extreme­ly close rela­tion­ship between finan­cial insti­tu­tions in Vaduz and Swiss banks. ‘Up to 80% of cus­tomers with accounts in Liecht­en­stein are rec­om­mend­ed by Swiss banks. Liecht­en­stein law empow­ers com­pa­nies in the prin­ci­pal­i­ty to deposit their mon­ey in an account with a Swiss bank,’ she said, adding that the sys­tem allowed ‘the Swiss banks to do covert­ly in Liecht­en­stein to do what they can’t do, for var­i­ous rea­sons, at home.’ [Empha­sis added.]”

(Idem.)

39. Note Ms. Koller’s analy­sis of the cen­tral role of mon­ey-laun­der­ing in the Liecht­en­stein econ­o­my, and the tac­it com­plic­i­ty of vir­tu­al­ly the entire pop­u­la­tion in that activ­i­ty.

“ . . . Ms. Koller, who had been mar­ried to a Liecht­en­stein politi­cian, said the vast major­i­ty of the tiny country’s pop­u­la­tion was in favor of the sys­tem. Indeed, Liecht­en­stein counts 32,000 inhab­i­tants but only 18,000 nation­als. Each of the 100,000 off­shore com­pa­nies reg­is­tered in the prin­ci­pal­i­ty must have a local on its com­pa­nies reg­is­tered in the prin­ci­pal­i­ty and must have a local on its board when it seeks incor­po­ra­tion. As a result, a big pro­por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion lives of fat fees earned in serv­ing as ‘direc­tors,’”

(Idem.)

40. Note the clout of the Liecht­en­stein estab­lish­ment, act­ing through the close­ly-allied Swiss finan­cial estab­lish­ment. Ms. Koller has been the focal point of con­sid­er­able ret­ri­bu­tion for her activ­i­ties.

“After denounc­ing the sys­tem before the head of gov­ern­ment and then the jus­tice min­is­ter, Ms. Koller dis­cov­ered that she was unable to find work and came under oth­er forms of pres­sure. Up to now she has filed 18 com­plaints, par­tic­u­lar­ly for ‘eco­nom­ic espi­onage’ and ‘vio­la­tion of pro­fes­sion­al con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.’ Nor has she been able to get work in Switzer­land since 1997 because of pres­sure exert­ed by Cred­it Suisse, the sec­ond-rank­ing Swiss bank. The Swiss estab­lish­ment is report­ed­ly involved heav­i­ly in Liecht­en­stein through Cred­it Suisse Trust AG Liecht­en­stein. [Empha­sis added.]”

(Idem.)

41. That Nor­bert Seeger’s law firm is the appar­ent epi­cen­ter of a blood and human organ smug­gling oper­a­tion is more than a lit­tle inter­est­ing. What is the pur­pose of this net­work, oth­er than prof­it? Might it be involved in genet­ic exper­i­men­ta­tion and/or cloning? Could it be con­nect­ed to the traf­fick­ing of AIDS-taint­ed prod­ucts, along the lines of what we exam­ined in FTR#411?

“The Swiss lawyer Marie-Gabrielle Koller who exposed mon­ey-laun­der­ing prac­tices in Liecht­en­stein (IN) now claims to have dis­cov­ered an exten­sive trade in human organs in Europe. She says the traf­fic pass­es by way of Switzer­land, Liecht­en­stein, the Unit­ed King­dom and the British Vir­gin Islands. [Empha­sis added.]”

(“Mys­tery Trade in Human Organs”; Intel­li­gence Newslet­ter: THREAT ASSESSMENT; CRIME; N. 391; Octo­ber 12, 2000.)

42. “The chief pros­e­cu­tor in Gene­va, Bernard Bertossa, has opened an inquiry into her alle­ga­tions. For its part, Intel­li­gence Newslet­ter has obtained a num­ber of doc­u­ments which indi­cate that from 1995 onwards at least one attempt was made to illic­it­ly sell human organs reach­ing West Europe from Rus­sia.”

(Idem.)

43. “Ms. Koller worked in Liecht­en­stein in a pres­ti­gious law firm run by Nor­bert Seeger, who is also pres­i­dent of the principality’s Pro­gres­sive Cit­i­zens Par­ty, between 1993–1996. [Empha­sis added.] In Jan­u­ary, 1995, Seeger found­ed an Asso­ci­a­tion for Sci­ence and Med­ical Research whose offi­cial aim was to sup­ply organs to uni­ver­si­ty lab­o­ra­to­ries; accord­ing to Ms. Koller, the asso­ci­a­tion in fact car­ried out a num­ber of illic­it trans­ac­tions.”

(Idem.)

44. Note that Ms. Koller’s alle­ga­tions appear to have been borne out by sub­se­quent inves­ti­ga­tions.

“From the out­set the orga­ni­za­tion count­ed sev­er­al Russ­ian nation­als among its mem­bers. The Asso­ci­a­tion was offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered with anoth­er law firm, Reng­gli, until the lat­ter declared it was ‘out of the ques­tion’ that it remain on the premis­es. Ms. Koller denounced her boss to the Liecht­en­stein author­i­ties in 1995. For her pains, how­ev­er, she was sued for eco­nom­ic espi­onage by Seeger. In 1996, the Ger­man news mag­a­zine Focus claimed to have evi­dence of a net­work trad­ing in illic­it blood and organs and linked Seeger and a Fri­bourg-based doc­tor, Michael Hum­mel, to it.”

(Idem.)

45. “While inves­ti­ga­tors in the can­ton of St. Gall in Liecht­en­stein closed the case in 1997, they acknowl­edged the Asso­ci­a­tion was ‘dubi­ous, with­out mem­bers or notable activ­i­ty.’ They added that Hum­mel had been ‘remu­ner­at­ed for ser­vices through hid­den pay­ments from for­eign com­mer­cial part­ners who must remain secret.’ [Empha­sis added.]”

(Idem.)