The CIA's station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.
Officials say the 41-year old CIA officer, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. Ambassador, David Pearce, in October after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September.
Watch "World News with Charles Gibson" TONIGHT at 6:30 p.m. ET for the full report.
The discovery of more than a dozen videotapes showing the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with other women has led the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include at least one other Arab country, Egypt, where the CIA officer had been posted earlier in his career, according to law enforcement officials.
The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.
"It has the potential to be quite explosive if it's not handled well by the United States government," said Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in women's issues in the Middle East.
"This isn't the type of thing that's going to be easily pushed under the carpet," she said.
The CIA refused to acknowledge the investigation or provide the name of the Algiers station chief, but the CIA Director of Public Affairs, Mark Mansfield, said, "I can assure you that the Agency would take seriously, and follow up on, any allegations of impropriety."
It can be a crime for government officials to reveal the identity of a current covert intelligence officer, and CIA officials would not comment the status of the person under investigation.
One of the alleged victims reportedly said she met the CIA officer at a bar in the U.S. embassy and then was taken to his official station chief residence where she said the sexual assault took place.
The second alleged victim reportedly told U.S. prosecutors that, in a separate incident, she also was drugged at the American's official residence before being sexually assaulted.
Both women have reportedly given sworn statements to federal prosecutors sent from Washington to prepare a possible criminal case against the CIA officer.
Following the initial complaints, U.S. officials say they obtained a warrant from a federal judge in Washington, D.C. in October to search the station chief's CIA-provided residence in Algiers and turned up the videos that appear to have been secretly recorded and show, they say, the CIA officer engaged in sexual acts.
Officials say one of the alleged victims is seen on tape, in a "semi-conscious state."
The time-stamped date on other tapes led prosecutors to broaden the investigation to Egypt because the date matched a time when CIA officer was in Cairo, officials said.
Pills found in the CIA residence were sent to the FBI crime laboratory for testing, according to officials involved in the case.
"Drugs commonly referred to as date rape drugs are difficult to detect because the body rapidly metabolizes them," said former FBI agent Brad Garrett, an ABC News consultant. "Many times women are not aware they were even assaulted until the next day," he said.
A third woman, a friend of one of the alleged victims, reportedly provided a cell phone video that showed her friend having a drink and dancing inside the CIA station chief's residence in Algiers, which officials told ABC News provided corroboration the CIA officer had indeed brought the woman to his residence.
The officer in charge of the CIA station in Algiers plays an important role in working with the Algerian intelligence services to combat an active al Qaeda wing responsible for a wave of bombings in Algeria.
Well, how about that, the woman's friend just happened to be filming her friend drinking and dancing with a man who is not her husband. How often does a Muslim woman film another Muslim woman engaging in such behavior? This is very fishy, if you ask me.
15 comments:
Well, if it was a fishing expedition, they seem to have accidentally done us a favor. The "convert" unfortunatly is likely representative of a certian class of "moderates," that can, after overlooking jihad, find excuse for anything.
Macus,
Perhaps, but think with me on this: These two Muslim women reported a rape, right?
Do Muslim women report rapes?
Are these women having trouble within their community for having shamed Islam? If not, then we know this was a setup.
More Islamic Vermin:
"A MURDERING Al Qaeda terrorist has sparked outrage after threatening legal action under the Human Rights Act unless women prison wardens in his presence wear veils.
Kamel Bourgass, 33, was jailed for life in 2004 after stabbing brave Special Branch officer Stephen Oake to death in a police raid. Now Bourgass is not only recruiting extremists to his twisted cause in Wakefield prison but is claiming that women wardens without veils infringe his human rights.
He has even cracked sick jokes about the bravery medal DC Oake received posthumously, sneering that it was made from the “metal of my knife”.
The Algerian had been preparing a deadly ricin poison attack on Bri tain when father-of-three Detective Constable Oake, 40, arrested him.
Bourgass, the first Muslim fanatic to murder a British police officer, has been in Wakefield jail for just a few weeks. But insiders claim he has already begun preaching Islamist hate against the West to inmates.
And wearing his long black cloak, he has infuriated wardens with the sick jibe about DC Oake. A prison insider revealed: “He is very abusive and confrontational with staff and says female officers in prayer meetings are a breach of his human rights.
“If they are on duty, he demands they wear a veil. “We’ve been told to closely monitor him because he preaches hatred at prayer meetings.”
"... At the time of the raid in Crumpsall, Greater Manchester, in 2003, dangerous Bourgass was plotting a terrifying mass poisoning of London Tube passengers.
Tragically DC Oake was not wearing a stab-proof jacket and was knifed eight times by Bourgass who had managed to free himself inside the flat. He also stabbed three other officers. Earlier this month the Daily Express revealed how DC Oake was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for bravery after dying trying to stop Bourgass knifing his colleagues.
The terrorist was jailed for a minimum of 22 years for murder and 17 for the poison plot. Evidence in the Algerian’s London flat linked him to Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab Al Zarqawi – the late terror leader who beheaded Liverpudlian hostage Ken Bigley in Iraq in 2004.
The source added: “When there was a TV report of DC Oake’s posthumous Queen’s Gallantry Medal, Bourgass was openly mocking him and made a sneering jibe about the medal being made from the metal from his knife.
“Staff reported him to security. It sickened everyone present.” Bourgass has also boasted that he already has two “disciples” in prison and is urging other inmates to follow.This is not the first insult to the brave officer who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend his police colleagues. A Police Memorial Trust’s stone, engraved with a simple message “Here fell DC Stephen Oake, 14 January 2003”, was smashed by yobs in 2007. It was later repaired.
DC Oake’s widow Lesley, who has three children, Christopher, Rebecca and Corinne, has since remarried and last night was unavailable for comment. But a fortnight ago she broke her silence from her home in Poynton, Cheshire, to speak of her pride at Stephen’s medal.
She said: “Both myself and the children and indeed, the wider family, are delighted to learn of the news that our much-loved ‘Steve’ has been honoured in this way. “Steve’s actions on that fateful day in January 2003 were typical of a man who was committed to his job and to his colleagues.
“We are extremely proud that his sacrificial act of bravery has resulted in this prestigious award.” Category A jail HMP Wakefield is one of Britain’s most secure prisons and holds some of our most dangerous criminals including serial child murderer Robert Black and Sean Mercer, the gangster who shot dead 11 year-old schoolboy Rhys Jones.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “We cannot comment on individual prisoners.” http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/82123/Al-Qaeda-killer-makes-veils-jibe-from-prison-cell
Algiers is not a "Burqa Babe" Mozlim city....it's not difficult to get laid there....they are quite like Parisians actually.
Algeria is more like Lebanon or Syria, or pre-Bush Iraq...mainly secular and not like the scumsuckers of the Gulf States.
Michael,
Ok. Thanks for pointing that out.
I believe it, but I'm not sure that impacts on the questions I asked in my post.
Here's some info I found on Women's rights in Algiers:
Karima was raped two weeks ago, but in this small hospital that word is never used. In order to prevent a scandal, people say she is ill.
Karima is not alone.
In 2006, more than 8,000 women reported being victims of violence, up from 5,000 in 2004 and 7,400 in 2005. These figures could indicate an increase in violence, an increase in women reporting crimes against them, or perhaps both. More and more women are speaking out, but the "golden rule" of silence continues to hold sway over most.
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/print/en_GB/features/awi/reportage/2007/12/28/reportage-01
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3087/context/archive
I like dressing up as a little girl before my men friends come to visit.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024617.php
This sounds like old Soviet techniques to me. They outed him so that he wouldn't become a mole. Interestingly enough, women in Islam are often raped and then blackmailed into suicide operations. The whole thing doesn't make sense. We will see how it turns out.
Jewel,
I agree. It doesn't make sense, and I think my theory does make sense out of it.
I could well be wrong, however. I realize that.
You know what ? this post is full of the same amount of crap about Islam and Muslims that the Al Qaeda Website has about the Christians and the West. You guys are really best buddies.
Pastorius,
The difficulty of muslim women reporting rape, you have correctly pointed out. I do not dispute that it was a setup. I just don't think a claim of entrapment is ameliorating of the rapist's crime. It seems to have been a trap. They seem to have caught something. I'm glad that he's called back from his post. If investigations prove all encounters consensual, then I think I'd still prefer that he not represent our interests in Algeria.
Macus,
Ok, gotcha. I agree.
I'm with Said here- what's with all the Islamophobia?
One could talk about the difficulties women face when reporting rape,
or
the likelihood that this was a set-up,
WITHOUT irrationally hating on Islam and Muslims, which are giant categories containing millions of people and thousands of interpretations.
Islamophobia? How does one discuss the relative rationality of a presumed fear, of another, without discussing the presumed object of said presumed fear?
Among the difficulties that women may experience, in certian religiously devout countries, when reporting a rape, might, on less than rare occasions, include murder by family members. Why is that? Has someone misinterpreted something that we dare not even name?
Who's more of an islamophobe, between the person that will delve into supposed "misinterpretations," or the person that won't even look?
Czech,
What did we say that makes you think we hate Muslims?
Is it the cartoons?
I know how angry I get at Porky Pig when he tries to shoot Bugs Bunny. I usually go on a burning and looting spree after Church.
he obviously has poor judgment.
as illustrated by the conversion
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