Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #607 Sheikhs On A Plane & Other Scary Stories: Interview with Daniel Hopsicker

Record­ed August 19, 2007
MP3: Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO

Updat­ing the inves­tiga­tive research of Daniel Hop­sick­er, this pro­gram cen­ters on sto­ries Daniel has writ­ten about some of the nefar­i­ous con­nec­tions of air pro­pri­etaries involved in the evac­u­a­tion of Sau­di nation­als from the Unit­ed States in the wake of Sep­tem­ber 11, includ­ing mem­bers of the Bin Laden fam­i­ly and Sau­di roy­als. As dis­cussed in FTR#’s 423 and 425, sev­er­al mem­bers of the Bin Laden fam­i­ly that were evac­u­at­ed on those flights were engaged in activ­i­ties that war­rant­ed inves­ti­ga­tion. The var­i­ous air pro­pri­etaries involved in the post‑9/11 flights had doc­u­ment­ed con­nec­tions to the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance in this regard is the fact that air­craft belong­ing to some of these com­pa­nies have alleged­ly been involved in some of the ille­gal ren­di­tions of ter­ror sus­pects. Oth­er com­pa­nies had doc­u­ment­ed links to orga­nized crime and the born-again Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty. Much of the pro­gram is devot­ed to dis­cus­sion of yet anoth­er law­suit brought against Daniel, this one by Makram Chams, alleged to be the own­er of a con­ve­nience store in Flori­da that served as some­thing of an oper­a­tional base for some of the 9/11 hijack­ers. In addi­tion to own­ing a casi­no boat and 40 gas sta­tions inFlori­da, Chams (not your typ­i­cal con­ve­nience store own­er) was work­ing as an offi­cial for Titan Cor­po­ra­tion, a pri­vate defense con­trac­tor that was a cen­tral ele­ment in the crim­i­nal activ­i­ties of Cal­i­for­nia Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Randy “Duke” Cun­ning­ham. The dis­cus­sion reviews the remark­able career of Alvin Mal­nik. Mal­nik was heir to the crime syn­di­cate of Mey­er Lansky—his fam­i­ly mar­ried into the Sau­di roy­al fam­i­ly. Con­vert­ing to Islam, Mal­nik and fam­i­ly pur­sued their “busi­ness” options with the eco­nom­ic throw-weight of the house of Saud behind them.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Dis­cus­sion of the Whitey Bul­ger case—the case of the Boston area mob­ster who com­mit­ted a series of mur­ders over a peri­od of years while serv­ing as an FBI infor­mant; the links between the Whitey Bul­ger case and North­star Avi­a­tion; the role of then U.S. Attor­ney Robert Mueller [now head of the FBI] in the Whitey Bul­ger case; review of the Jack Abramoff case and the mur­der of Bush fam­i­ly ally Gus Boulis.

1. One of the impor­tant sto­ries ref­er­enced in the pro­gram is an arti­cle about links between the fun­da­men­tal­ist Chris­t­ian milieu and some of the air­lines involved in the post‑9/11 evac­u­a­tions of Sau­di nation­als.
(“Pirates of the Caribbean: ‘Chris­t­ian Fun­da­men­tal­ists’ and the CIA” by Daniel Hop­sick­er; 5/30/2007; avail­able at: http://www.madcowprod.com/05302007.html.)

2. Fur­ther devel­op­ing a major focal point of the pro­gram, the dis­cus­sion sets forth the rela­tion­ship between ele­ments of the CIA and the air pro­pri­etaries involved in those evac­u­a­tions. Some of these air­lines have been involved in some of the con­tro­ver­sial ren­di­tions of ter­ror sus­pects.
(“Sheikhs on a Plane” by Daniel Hop­sick­er; 6/28/2007; http://www.madcowprod.com/06282007a.html.)

3. A num­ber of these same air pro­pri­etaries are linked to orga­nized crime. Of par­tic­u­lar note in this con­text is the fact that North­star Avi­a­tion has doc­u­ment­ed links to the New Eng­land Patri­ar­cha crime fam­i­ly. The Patri­ar­cha fam­i­ly fea­tured promi­nent­ly in the scan­dal involv­ing the FBI’s use of Boston crime oper­a­tive Whitey Bul­ger as an infor­mant. While on the Bureau’s pay­roll, Bul­ger com­mit­ted a num­ber of mur­ders, with the knowl­edge of the Bureau. Intrigu­ing­ly, the U.S. Attor­ney in charge of oper­a­tions in Boston at the time was Robert Mueller, now head of the FBI. [For more about Mueller, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#’s 310, 603.]
(“Sau­di Flights on Mob and CIA-Linked Char­ters” by Daniel Hop­sick­er; 7/12/2007; avail­able at: http://www.madcowprod.com/07122007.html.)

4. A major sto­ry referred to tan­gen­tial­ly in the pro­gram con­cerns Mohamed Atta’s posi­tion as an exec­u­tive of a Flori­da busi­ness that appears to have been an intel­li­gence front.
(“Mohamed Atta, Flori­da Entre­pre­neur” by Daniel Hop­sick­er; 6/12/2007; http://www.madcowprod.com/06122007.html.)

5. Much of the dis­cus­sion cen­tered on a law­suit filed against Daniel by Makram Chams, the alleged own­er of a con­ve­nience store. Nom­i­nal­ly owned by a rel­a­tive, that store served as a meet­ing place and mon­ey wire cen­ter for Mohamed Atta and some of the 9/11 hijack­ers. Chams also owns a Casi­no boat and some 40 gas sta­tions in Flori­da. In addi­tion, Chams appears to be a an exec­u­tive with Titan cor­po­ra­tion, a pri­vate mil­i­tary con­trac­tor that played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the scan­dals sur­round­ing the con­vict­ed Repub­li­can con­gress­man Randy “Duke” Cun­ning­ham. For more about Makram Chams, see FTR#’s 554, 574, 590.

6. Illus­trat­ing the strange polit­i­cal asso­ci­a­tions that char­ac­ter­ize the back­ground of Mohamed Atta and com­pa­ny in Flori­da, the dis­cus­sion reviews the remark­able career of Alvin Mal­nik. Mal­nik was heir to the crime syn­di­cate of Mey­er Lan­sky. His fam­i­ly mar­ried into the Sau­di roy­al fam­i­ly. Con­vert­ing to Islam, Mal­nik and fam­i­ly pur­sued their “busi­ness” options with the eco­nom­ic throw-weight of the house of Saud behind them. (For more about Mal­nik, see FTR#412.)

7. Two video pro­duc­tions are being gen­er­at­ed by a cou­ple of doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ers. One is a DVD of a three-lec­ture series called “The First Refuge of a Scoundrel: The Rela­tion­ship Between Fas­cism and Reli­gion.” To learn more about this, vis­it The Anti-Fas­cist YouTube.com page. In addi­tion, there will soon be a doc­u­men­tary about Mr. Emory, titled “The Anti-Fas­cist.” For more about this project, vis­it theantifascist.com.

Discussion

3 comments for “FTR #607 Sheikhs On A Plane & Other Scary Stories: Interview with Daniel Hopsicker”

  1. Here’s one Whitey Bul­ger mys­tery solved!

    (or we’re expe­ri­enc­ing the much dread­ed Geezer Ban­dit copy­cat effect).

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | November 11, 2011, 10:28 pm
  2. Yowza:

    ABC News
    ‘Whitey’ Bul­ger Wit­ness Found Dead

    By AARON KATERSKY (@aaronkatersky) , MICHELE MCPHEE and JOSH MARGOLIN (@JoshMargolin)
    BOSTON July 18, 2013

    Stephen “Stip­po” Rakes, a pos­si­ble wit­ness in the mur­der tri­al of alleged crime boss James “Whitey” Bul­ger, has been found dead, author­i­ties said.

    The body of Rakes, 59, had “no obvi­ous signs of trau­ma” and an autop­sy is being per­formed to deter­mine the cause of death, Mid­dle­sex Dis­trict Attor­ney Mar­i­an Ryan and Lin­coln, Mass., Police Chief Kevin Mooney announced today.

    The corpse was found on Mill Street in Lin­coln yes­ter­day at 1:30 p.m., police said.

    Rakes had been on the wit­ness list and had been eager to tes­ti­fy that Bul­ger threat­ened his fam­i­ly at gun­point and forced him to turn his liquor store into a front for the Win­ter Hill Gang. But ear­li­er this week pros­e­cu­tors informed Rakes he would not be called to tes­ti­fy, a deci­sion that left Rakes “despon­dent,” a source close to his fam­i­ly told ABC News.

    The judge over­see­ing the Bul­ger case hun­kered down with lawyers in a con­fi­den­tial con­fer­ence at the South Boston cour­t­house today where the tri­al is being held. Bul­ger, alleged to be a noto­ri­ous and mur­der­ous crime boss and fed­er­al infor­mant, is stand­ing tri­al after being found on the lam in Cal­i­for­nia two years ago.

    Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors said Rakes was sup­posed to tes­ti­fy that Bul­ger and asso­ciate Stephen Flem­mi threat­ened his daugh­ter at gun­point, and took over his South Boston liquor store for Bul­ger’s head­quar­ters. Bul­ger side­kick Kevin Weeks tes­ti­fied last week Rakes’ con­tention that Bul­ger’s gang put a gun to his daugh­ter’s head was bogus.

    Rakes comes from a sto­ried South Boston fam­i­ly. His broth­er Joseph Rakes was pho­tographed in Stan­ley For­man’s Pulitzer Prize win­ning pho­to­graph charg­ing at an African-Amer­i­can man on Boston’s City Hall with the sharp end of the Amer­i­can flag – which became the sym­bol of the racial unrest dur­ing the city’s anti-bus­ing cri­sis.

    News of his death inves­ti­ga­tion came on the same day that Stephen “The Rifle­man” Flem­mi was slat­ed to take the stand against Bul­ger. The two men ran the Win­ter Hill Gang for decades while also work­ing as infor­mants for the FBI, accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors and court­room tes­ti­mo­ny.

    Police told the Rakes fam­i­ly the death appeared to be a sui­cide. But a source close to the Rakes fam­i­ly told ABC News that “he had no phone, no wal­let, and police are still look­ing for his car.” The body of the man found in Lin­coln was pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied as Rakes this morn­ing after a fin­ger­print match, sources said.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 18, 2013, 10:19 am
  3. It looks like the death of the wit­ness in the Whitey Bul­ger case, Stephen Rakes, was just ruled a homi­cide with Rakes’s busi­ness asso­ciate being charged with the crime. Author­i­ties are also view­ing it as unre­lat­ed to the Bul­ger case:

    Offi­cials: Cyanide killed poten­tial Bul­ger wit­ness
    Oct. 20, 2013 3:15 PM EDT

    BOSTON (AP) — The Mass­a­chu­setts med­ical exam­in­er’s office deter­mined that cyanide poi­son­ing killed an alleged extor­tion vic­tim of Boston gang­ster James “Whitey” Bul­ger who had hoped to tes­ti­fy at Bul­ger’s tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors said Sun­day.

    The med­ical exam­in­er’s office con­clud­ed that Stephen Rakes, 59, of Quin­cy, died of acute cyanide tox­i­c­i­ty in July and ruled his death a homi­cide, accord­ing to Mary­Beth Long, a spokes­woman for the Mid­dle­sex dis­trict attor­ney’s office.

    Author­i­ties said Rakes’ death was­n’t relat­ed to the Bul­ger case.

    Rakes’ busi­ness asso­ciate, William Camu­ti, 69, of Sud­bury, is charged with attempt­ed mur­der and oth­er crimes for alleged­ly poi­son­ing Rakes’ iced cof­fee. Camu­ti has plead­ed not guilty.

    Pros­e­cu­tors said Camu­ti owed Rakes mon­ey and lured him to a meet­ing where he poi­soned his drink then drove Rakes around for hours before dump­ing his body.

    Long said the dis­trict attor­ney’s office intends to file addi­tion­al charges against Camu­ti based on the new find­ings by the med­ical exam­in­er.

    A phone mes­sage for Camu­ti’s attor­ney, Stan­ley Norku­nas, was not imme­di­ate­ly returned Sun­day.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 20, 2013, 5:36 pm

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