ARGENTINA / INTELLIGENCE SECRETARIAT
THE GUARDIAN
ARTICLE
The shady history of Argentina’s Intelligence Secretariat
The agency, which president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wants to dissolve, runs domestic spying on a scale to rival the communist bloc
Tuesday 27 January 2015 13.28 AEST
On Monday night, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, took the bold step of announcing a plan to dissolve the country’s Intelligence Secretariat and send to congress a draft bill for the “reform of Argentina’s intelligence service” in the wake of the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman nine days ago.
A possible explanation for Nisman’s death, which came only days after he announced charges that aimed to put Fernández on trial for an alleged conspiracy with Iran, seems to be hidden inside a complex saga of mind-boggling intrigue involving the intelligence agency she now intends to reform.
Created as the Information Division (División Informaciones) by Argentina’s strongman General Juan Perón in 1946, the service’s first task was to arrange the postwar transport of Nazi war criminals to Argentina, some of whom then went on to serve in Perón’s intelligence agency.
Since then, the service has changed its name a number of times, its latest incarnation being the Intelligence Secretariat, better known by its Spanish-language acronym SI. Under Fernández, Argentina’s secret service is alleged to have been involved in domestic spying on a scale rivalling that in Eastern European nations before the fall of the Berlin wall.
[Meanwhile, let's forget about NATO's stay-behind paramilitary in Europe, Operation Gladio, and let's forget about contemporary NSA worldwide MASS surveillance, involving FVEY/Five Eye (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand & USA); reporters both sides of Atlantic either bribed or otherwise used, or spied on & harassed; RIPA powers abused UK; political groups and various protesters harassed & spied on both sides of Atlantic and so on.
What's with 'Eastern European' rubbish when one need not look any further than home for examples of 'communist bloc' spying -- and much, much worse?]
Nisman’s connection at the SI was Antonio, aka “Jaime” Stiuso, an enigmatic figure who for years reputedly ran a vast eavesdropping network that made him the most feared man in Argentina.
Few details about the man are in the public domain. He is a 61-year-old communications expert who joined the service in 1972 at 18 years of age. He has three daughters (for whom he reportedly sought security protection from a Buenos Aires court recently) and is reputedly extremely charming. “He’s charismatic, very relaxed, he laughs a lot,” says Rodis Recalt, a journalist from Noticias magazine who interviewed him last month. “After months of tracking him, he called me. I never saw him face to face.”
[Charming, charismatic, jolly ... combined with 'most feared man in Argentina' running a vast eavesdropping network? Sounds like a sociopath.]
Under Férnandez in recent years, and under Néstor Kirchner, the president’s now-deceased husband and predecessor, Stiuso’s power is alleged to have grown exponentially, thanks to the extensive wiretapping services on political opponents that he allegedly carried out for the Kirchners.
[But is he *really* a Kirchner man?]
“But last October, when Fernández found out through military intelligence that Nisman was preparing charges against her for an alleged cover-up of Iran’s role in the bombing, she became understandably furious that Stiuso had not alerted her,” an intelligence source told the Guardian.
[An unnamed source. Eyeroll. Sounds like a case of military intelligence versus Intelligence Secretariat in Argentina and Intelligence Secretariat versus Argentine government? That naughty Stiuso ... might be up to no good.]
By late December, when she began to suspect that it was actually Stiuso who had poisoned Nisman against her, she fired Stiuso and began preparing to dismiss Nisman as well. “She was doubting between replacing Nisman completely, or appointing two assistant prosecutors by his side to neutralise him,” the source maintains.
The president’s alleged fury was fuelled by the extensive use of wiretaps provided by Stiuso that Nisman made in his 300-page accusation against her.
In an long statement posted to her website last week, Fernández seemed to make the case that Nisman’s accusation was actually written by Stiuso, and that Nisman was then killed by the same people who convinced him to present the charges. “They used him alive and then they needed him dead,” Fernández wrote. “As sad and as terrible as that.”
[To be fair, Stiuso does sound like a right piece of work.]
Former president Kirchner introduced Nisman to Stiuso 11 years ago, when Kirchner put the prosecutor in charge of solving the 1994 bombing of the Amia Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, the deadliest terrorist attack in Latin America. “The two developed a father-son relationship,” says the intelligence source, who knew both men well.
[Intelligence source who knew both Nisman and Stiuso? Is that it? C'mon, that's pretty broad.
Skipping the misty-eyed father and son relationship scenario (or is that Puppet Master and Puppet?), wonder if the intelligence source 'who knew both men well' is Stiuso himself ... or maybe even the CIA, judging by information from other sources:
Argentina's Foreign Minister has accused those in the intelligence agency of fabricating the complaint:
statement by Foreign Minister Hector Timerman against Prosecutor Alberto Nisman describing his complaint as a fabricated product of a manoeuvre by Intelligence Service agents who have been removed from their positions [here]
Another article reports that Nisman's Iran & Hezbollah accusations are based almost wholly on information from intelligence services -- and that the US embassy is responsible for pushing Nisman in that direction:
Nisman is a prosecutor who devoted the past 10 years to push the accusations against the Iranian regime and Lebanon’s Hezbollah for the AMIA bombing, almost completely based on information provided by intelligence services. The US Embassy was the one that pushed Nisman toward that approach, at the expense of probing any other possible foreign or local responsibilities, as was exposed in the WikiLeaks cables. That thesis is also favoured by the Israeli government and the leadership of the Argentine Jewish community. In particular, the latter tried to lobby before the Embassy in favour of former DAIA President Rubén Beraja, who was convicted and then acquitted of perjury charges to cover up the attack, among other judicial proceedings against him. [here] ]
Only the security cameras on the front gate and an Argentinian flag draped from a white metal pole above the entrance indicate the location of the Judicial Observations Department on Avenida de los Incas 3834, a six-storey redbrick building in the upscale neighbourhood of Belgrano. An endless series of press articles and books allege, and at least one court raid has proven, that housed inside are a vast array of computers and recorders continually monitoring the activity of Argentina’s politicians, judges, prosecutors and journalists. Court-ordered wiretaps are also carried out there, since by law only the SI is permitted to intercept calls in Argentina.
Nisman made extensive use of the powerful eavesdropping capabilities of the facility while investigating the Amia blast. It was while poring over calls between Argentina and Iran that Nisman says he discovered the secret offer by Argentina’s government to shield Iranian officials from his arrest warrants, in return for Iranian oil. The calls were made to Iranian offical Moshen Rabbani in the city of Qom, who, as the former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires at the time of the bombing, speaks perfect Spanish, the language used in all the transcribed calls.
[As only the intelligence service of Argentina is 'permitted to intercept calls', one would think that any intercepted calls Nisman 'pored' over, would have been done alongside his Intelligence Secretariat 'Daddy', Stiuso.]
Stiuso’s name was known to only a select few until 2004, when justice minister Gustavo Beliz, a politician with a reputation for honesty in a political arena widely considered to be mired in corruption, unmasked him. Beliz displayed a blurry photo of Stiuso on television and accused him of having mounted “a kind of Gestapo” to coerce politicians and journalists to follow the bidding of his political masters. Far from being rewarded for his courage, the minister was fired by Kirchner.
[Turns out Gustavo Beliz was acquitted of charges that appear to have been brought about by Stiuso and the same court that acquitted Beliz ordered an investigation into Stiuso - referred to in this post.]
Beliz went into self-imposed exile in the United States and Uruguay, unable to return to public office. His withdrawal into silence is considered a testament to Stiuso’s far-reaching secret network.
[Wow, I wonder what the choice of 'retirement' locations is testament to?]
But not everybody has such a negative vision of the man who reputedly pulled the secret strings of power in Argentina. “You should have seen how well received he was at the CIA and the Mossad,” says another intelligence source who worked closely with Nisman and Stiuso on the Amia case.
The two men became convinced, partly on the basis of intelligence provided by the United States and Israel, that Iran had been behind the blast. The biggest advance in the case came in 2007, when Interpol agreed to issue international “Red Notices” for the arrest of their five main Iranian suspects, Rabbani chief among them.
[Two men? Take it that's Nisman and Stiuso?
LOL ... 'partly' or 'almost WHOLLY', as per other sources.
While the issue of an Interpol Red Notice may be described as the 'biggest advance' in the AMIA case, the issue of a Red Notice itself is no indicator of the merits of a case.
Extracts of The Guardian's own article about Red Notice misuse:
Red notice alerts are meant to be used to combat international crime but their credibility is being undermined, Fair Trials International maintains, because they are being misused by some of the 190 participating states to pursue exiled political opponents.
In the UK, Benny Wenda, a West Papuan freedom fighter who escaped from prison in Indonesia and was granted asylum as a political refuge, was pursued by a red notice obtained by Indonesia based on politically-motivated charges. It was deleted following intervention by Fair Trials.
In a more recent case, the report documents, a 28-year-old British woman who worked for an airline's cabin crew "had her life turned upsidedown and her employment terminated when she was the subject of an red notice based on an unpaid debt in the Middle East." The notice was belatedly deleted.
Note also Britain's very own political prisoner, Julian Assange, whose political asylum has been blocked by Sweden, by Red Notice, by European Arrest Warrant, by the threat of extradition to the USA and by the threat of arrest by British police, who have been stationed inside and outside the Ecuador embassy for over 2 years now, at an astonishing cost of nearly US$15 million to the British tax-payer.
No mention of Sweden and Britain abusing the Interpol notice system or US, Sweden and Britain abusing human rights (Take a pick: Assange or renditions, anyone?), while the establishment accepted targets do get a Guardian mention: Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Belarus, Indonesia, Iran and Venezuela.
But when Argentina and Iran, as a result of the alleged secret negotiations Nisman uncovered, signed a public memorandum in 2013 to set up a joint “Truth Commission” to investigate the blast, effecitvely killing Nisman’s investigation, Stiuso and Nisman became disenchanted with Fernández. The slowly widening rift could explain Nisman’s decision to press charges against her, perhaps with Stiuso’s support, as Fernández seems to feel.
[2013 Iran and Argentina sign a Memorandum. And this is supposed to have derailed the 10-year investigation and supposed to have been the catalyst for Stiuso and Nisman putting their heads together? Would have to do some reading to find out more about that.]
“Stiuso is an intelligence officer who follows commands to the letter,” says the intelligence source who worked on the Amia case. “But he was not prepared to betray his geopolitical alliance and put in jeopardy the great prestige he enjoyed with the western intelligence services.”
[Bullsh*t. Stiuso sounds more like a power crazy sociopath who does what he wants. Rather than following 'commands to the letter', sounds like Stiuso is dancing to his own tune ... or that of a foreign interest. And how does his 'own' (ie personal) geopolitical alliance even come into the equation if he's one to 'follow commands to the letter'? What commands? Only those that fit his personal agenda?
Why is this 'intelligence source who worked on the AMIA case' trying to sell us a snake in the grass Stiuso?]
From 2013 onwards, the sources agree, Stiuso’s disenchantment with Fernández led him to feed information to the courts and to journalists related to some of the numerous cases of corruption that have made headlines in Argentina in the last two years.
[Stiuso was at it WAAAAAAY before 2013, as accuser of the former Justice Minister Gustavo Beliz (acquitted) -- and it looks like he may have been involved in some kind of extortion of a judge, Norberto Oyarbide - here]
Sounds like Stiuso could be our unnamed but solid leaker to journalist Damian Pachter or even the unnamed intelligence source in this Guardian piece, if prior form is anything to go by.
No indication if Stiuso was in still in Argentina when Pachter was fed the scoop of the century, but even if he was in the US at that stage, it's not difficult to imagine a Stiuso proxy feeding the media in his absence. And look (below) where Stiuso headed: USA.]
According to one of these sources, Stiuso has left Argentina for the United States. “He called me from the US a few days ago,” the source says. “He told me he was sickened by what is happening at the intelligence service, particularly by the firing of his 20 closest collaborators.”
[LOL ... it's a Stiuso PROXY!!! Yeah, Stiuso's sickened -- particularly sickened by his OWN firing.]
In the face of the failed memorandum of understanding with Iran and the fact the “Red Notices” from Interpol are still standing, at least one former secret service chief has worries that extend far beyond the Nisman case.
[How has the Memorandum failed? It is a memorandum of understanding -- it is an agreement reached after a decade-long investigation that led nowhere.
Oh, here we go. Yet another intelligence source stirring up 'worries'. ]
“The purge of the service’s best anti-terrorist experts and the failure of the agreement with Iran has left Argentina open to another Amia-style bombing,” says former Intelligence Secretariat chief Miguel Ángel Toma, who knew Stiuso and is also a firm believer that Iran had a hand in the bombing. “We managed to find even the exact date and hour at which the decision to bomb the Amia was taken in Qom,” Toma says. “I am extremely worried.”
[The real worry for these guys is the PURGE of the Argentine intelligence service.
Best anti-terrorist experts, my ass.
More like the best CIA/Mossad/MI6 puppets in the country, now scaremongering ... to pressure and destabilise the current Argentine government.]
COMMENT
The mark text in red above is obviously my commentary.
Where did The Guardian find all these blabbing, whining and badmouthing, Stiuso proxy and CIA snakes for their article?
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