July 19, 2011
Pakistan's Military Plotted to Tilt U.S. Policy, F.B.I. Says
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON -- Pakistan's military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India's control of much of Kashmir -- including funneling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed Tuesday.
The allegations of a long-running plan to influence American elections and foreign policy come at a time of deep tensions between the United States and Pakistan -- and in particular its spy agency -- amid the fallout over the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound deep inside Pakistan on May 2.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation made the allegations in a 43-page affidavit filed in connection with the indictment of two United States citizens on charges that they failed to register with the Justice Department as agents of Pakistan, as required by law. One of the men, Zaheer Ahmad, is in Pakistan, but the other, Syed Fai, lives in Virginia and was arrested on Tuesday.
Mr. Fai is the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a Washington-based group that lobbies for and holds conferences and media events to promote the cause of self-determination for Kashmir. According to the affidavit, the activities by the group, also called the Kashmiri Center, are largely financed by Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, along with as much as $100,000 a year in related donations to political campaigns in the United States. Foreign governments are prohibited from making donations to American political candidates.
"Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose -- to hide Pakistan's involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government's position on Kashmir," Neil MacBride, the United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, said. "His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington."
A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy denied any connection to matter, saying, "Mr. Fai is not a Pakistani citizen, and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case."
Law enforcement officials said Pakistan used a network of at least 10 unnamed straw contributors, which Mr. Ahmad helped organize, to make the campaign contributions and donate the bulk of the Kashmiri Center's annual operating budget. The ISI would reimburse them -- or their families in Pakistan -- for the donations, the officials said.
Most of the straw donors who made contributions to the Kashmiri Center and to politicians in the United States were identified only by code in the court document, though the investigation was continuing and eight F.B.I. field offices executed 17 or 18 search warrants related to other suspected donors on Tuesday, an official said.
The goal of the group, according to internal documents cited by the F.B.I., was to persuade the United States government that it was in its interest to push India to allow a vote in Kashmir to decide its future. The group's strategy was to offset the Indian lobby by targeting members of the Congressional committees that focus on foreign affairs with private briefings and events, staging activities that would draw media attention and otherwise to elevate the issue of Kashmir -- the disputed region between India and Pakistan that each country controls in part but claims entirely -- in Washington.
The F.B.I. said that there was no evidence that any of the lawmakers who received campaign funds from Pakistan were aware of its origins, and it did not name any of the recipients.
However, a search in Federal Elections Commission databases for contributions by Mr. Fai showed that he has made more than $20,000 in campaign contributions over the past two decades. The bulk of his donations went to two recipients: the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Representative Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana.
Mr. Fai made numerous -- though smaller -- contributions to Democrats as well, including to Representatives James P. Moran of Virginia, Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and Gregory W. Meeks of New York, and $250 donations to the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Barack Obama.
Mr. Ahmad also donated to Mr. Burton, records show. For at least 15 years, Mr. Burton has been a champion for Kashmiri causes in Congress, appealing to Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama to get more involved in attempting to mediate a settlement between India and Pakistan over the border region. He has also endorsed allowing the Kashmiri people to vote on their own fate.
Mr. Burton said he was "deeply shocked" by the arrest of Mr. Fai, because he had known him for 20 years and "in that time I had no inkling of his involvement with any foreign intelligence operation and had presumed our correspondence was legitimate." He said he would donate the funds provided to his campaign to the Boy Scouts of America.
Both Mr. Fai and Mr. Ahmad also donated to Representative Joe Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican who visited the region in 2001 and 2004, meeting with Pakistani and Indian leaders and calling for a cease-fire. He also introduced a resolution in 2004 calling for President George W. Bush to appoint a special envoy to help negotiate peace.
A spokesman for Mr. Pitts said he had donated $4,000 -- an amount equal to the donations his campaign received from the two defendants -- to local charities in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Among the evidence that Mr. Fai was working for Pakistan, the affidavit said, are annual budget requests he allegedly submitted to his handlers along with lists of accomplishments and strategic-planning documents. Other documents and intercepts showed that they sometimes quarreled over reimbursing him for the costs of trips or about contracts for which he had not gotten advance approval.
The board of the Kashmiri American Council comprises mostly physicians and lawyers from across the United States, and election records show that several board members have made significant donations to lawmakers who have championed peace in Kashmir.
Gulam Hassan Butt, a retired California physician and member of the council's board whose name does not appear in the donor database, said in a phone interview that the council carried out a "regular, honest, open campaign" with lawmakers and the State Department to get the United States to help resolve the Kashmir issue.
He also said he was unaware of any money that Pakistan's government might have provided to the Kashmiri American Council, but Mr. Fai did not inform board members about all the sources of the council's revenue: "Where does he get the money?" Mr. Butt said. "I don't know. Who gives him the money? I don't know."
Eric Lipton, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting. Barclay Walsh contributed research.
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Earlier at url:
F.B.I. Arrests Man Said to Be a Front for Donations
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ERIC SCHMITT
July 19, 2011
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department said that the government of Pakistan, including elements of its intelligence service, has been secretly funneling campaign contributions for years to members of Congress, presidential campaigns, and federal campaign committees, often through an activist working on Kashmiri issues who was arrested by the F.B.I. on Tuesday.
In court documents, prosecutors accused the arrested man -- Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, 62, a United States citizen from Virginia -- of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the government of Pakistan. He is the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a nongovernmental organization in Washington that is also called the Kashmir Center. Founded in 1990, the center issues press releases and seeks to persuade government officials to adopt foreign policies promoting the end of Indian rule in Kashmir, a region claimed by both India and Pakistan. Another man, Zaheer Ahmad was also charged in the alleged conspiracy, but he is believed to be in Pakistan, officials said.
"Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose -- to hide Pakistan's involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government's position on Kashmir," said Neil MacBride, the United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. "His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences, and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington."
Pakistan has spent more than $4 million over the past two decades in its covert effort to influence the United States to adopt a more critical stance toward India's control of Kashmir, the government asserted.
A spokesman for the Pakistani embassy said, "Mr. Fai is not a Pakistani citizen, and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case."
An affidavit cites budget requests that the council's director is alleged to have sent to handlers in Pakistan for money to lobby Congress and the executive branch, and for campaign contributions, including $100,000 for donations in 2009 alone. While the affidavit says that lawmakers were unaware of the true origins of the campaign funds they were receiving, the allegations could nonetheless add to mounting tensions between the United States and Pakistan.
The court papers do not name any of the lawmakers who received contributions. They suggest that a network of people could have served as straw donors, both to the Kashmiri Center and to political campaigns, who were reimbursed, or whose families in Pakistan were reimbursed. The affidavit mentions 10 unnamed straw donors, as well as Mr. Ahmad and members of a medical group that includes several physicians.
It affidavit also notes that on at least one occasion a nephew of Mr. Fai may have made a straw donation to an unnamed lamwaker a month after Mr. Fai did so.
Federal Election Committee databases show that Mr. Fai has made more than $20,000 in campaign contributions in his own name. The bulk of them went to two Republican congressmen -- Representatives Dan Burton of Indiana and Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania -- who have been outspoken in their criticism of India's handling of Kashmir. But Mr. Fai also made smaller contributions to several Democratic representatives, including Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Jim Moran of Virginia and Gregory Meeks of New York.
He also donated $250 to Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign and another $250 to Barack Obama's in 2008, and he gave thousands to both the Democratic and Republican senatorial committees, the databases show.
It is against the law for foreigners to contribute, directly or indirectly, to candidates for federal office. But Mr. Fai was not charged with campaign finance violations. A Justice Department spokesman said the investigation of his activities was continuing.
While the center he runs portrays itself as independent, the affidavit says that it -- and two similar centers in London and Belgium -- have long been secretly financed by the Pakistani government as propaganda outlets. If so, federal law would require Mr. Fai to register as an agent of Pakistan, something he did not do.
In a 44-page affidavit unsealed on Tuesday, Sarah Webb Linden, an F.B.I. special agent who worked the case, said the Kashmir Center was largely financed by Pakistan using straw donors, and that while Mr. Fai had day-to-day latitude, he was ultimately a Pakistani agent for more than two decades.
She said a confidential witness told the F.B.I. about his own participation in funneling money to the center in 2005 in order to get a reduced sentence.
She also alleged that Mr. Fai has communicated more than 4,000 times since 2008 with four people the F.B.I. believes are Pakistani government handlers, based on intercepted communications.
Ms. Linden cited documents that Mr. Fai allegedly sent to Pakistan containing annual strategy plans and budget requests, including a request for $100,000 for contributions to members of Congress in 2009. Her affidavit said there was no evidence that any candidates knew that Pakistan was the source of the campaign contributions.
Government agents have repeatedly questioned Mr. Fai about over the past four years about connections with the government of Pakistan, and the Justice Department sent him a letter last year notifying him that he might have an obligation to register as an agent. The affidavits said Mr. Fai repeatedly denied working for Pakistan.
Law enforcement officials denied that the timing of his arrest was related to souring American relations with Pakistan and the I.S.I. in the wake of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in a residential compound in Pakistan. One senior law enforcement official said the case against Mr. Fai had been ready for some time, and that investigators had been waiting to see if an alleged co-conspirator would travel to the United States.