you all remember edmond safra – don’t you?

The kafir press itself has boasted of the four hundred individuals who own almost half the world’s wealth, so it is no fantasy of their opponents. The disturbing fact remains that these people are basically unknown while they control the destiny not only of the world’s population but of the globe itself. For a brief moment the veil was lifted on just one of these most shameless and hated people. Let us grit our teeth, and turn our gaze upon just one of this loathsome cohort, now blessedly dead.

Were it not for the event of his death and the strange nature of his demise, we would all have remained blissfully ignorant of his very existence. At 5 a.m. on Friday Dec 3 1999, it was claimed that two masked intruders broke into the Monaco penthouse of the billionaire banker, Edmond Safra. Fires were started in the apartment which got out of hand, and the terrified banker fled to the bathroom with his nurse and locked the steel reinforced door for safety. Although his wife told him by cell-phone that it was safe to come out, apparently he was too scared and as a result the banker and his nurse were killed by smoke inhalation. The penthouse atop the elegant six-storey Belle Époque building, which, true to form, also housed three banks, was seriously damaged in the resultant blaze. Soon the story of masked intruders gave way to the story that the fire had been an inside job started by his jewish nurse, Ted Maher. That story in turn became increasingly dubious as the media began to investigate the event. An ugly trail of evidence emerged rapidly showing that Safra was under investigation in connection with the Iran-Contra operation. There were further allegations that he was deeply involved in handling funds of the Russian mafia. Then a book surfaced entitled ‘Vendetta’ by Bryan Burrough which told in dramatic form of a savage conflict between Safra and the powerful American Express banking sector. Excerpts of the book were published, but the book suddenly went out of print and became inaccessible.

The corpse at the centre of this frenzy of gossip and news turned out to be one of the wealthiest private citizens in the world. Simply nobody had ever heard of him. Yet he had owned the Trade Development Bank of Switzerland which he had sold to American Express in 1983. He owned the Republic National Bank of New York, SAFRA banks (Florida, New York and California), Banque de Crédit Nationale, S.A.I. (Beirut, Lebanon), Banco SAFRA, S.A. of Brazil, Sabon S.A. of Panama, Concord Trust Ltd. in London, and as well as these he owned numerous other banks throughout the world. He had been born in Lebanon, and true to the profile we have indicated he defined himself as both banker and philanthropist. At the time of his death at the age of 67, he was overseeing the sale of the Republic National and the affiliated SAFRA Republic Holdings to Britain’s HSBC Holdings for $9.85b. The sale went through, generating $2.8b for Safra’s heirs.

His security chief, Shmule Cohen, got to the apartment too late to rescue Safra, who had recruited a small army of security guards from among the veterans of special units of the Israeli army. His banker’s profile remains utterly classical with the usual series of luxury houses, villas and apartments throughout the world. His villa La Leopolda, which had been the property of King Leopold of Belgium, hence its now vulgar name, had been the site of those hideous celebrity parties at which the banking elite liked to surface to mingle with media stars and moguls. One highly poetic press report on his demise told its credulous readers that his wealth had been gained in the Lebanon through helping finance the desert caravans! How long can people continue in such naiveté and abysmal ignorance in the face of those who once had nothing then by a series of ruthless deceptions, manipulations and collaborations succeed in that gigantic theft which leaves them with the massive capital sum reckoned in billions, acquired only by reducing the world’s masses to being part of that one great nation of debtors, the human race, minus a few hundred criminals?

– Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi: “Technique of the Coup de Banque” (pdf book)

Philanthropic foundation grants Hebrew U. largest gift ever
AP via Haaretz, May 31 2009

Jerusalem’s Hebrew University is using a $50m gift from the foundation of a donor who was killed in 1999 to launch a new brain research center. The $50m donation from the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation is the largest gift ever for research at an Israeli university, the university said. Researchers at the center will work on developing treatments for neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, said Prof. Eilon Vaadia, director of the new center, but will also focus more broadly on the way stimuli such as sight and sound are translated into brain impulses. Officials put the total cost of building the center at $130m. The university plans to raise the remaining money from alumni and other donors, and Vaadia said he expects it to be fully operational in about 10 years. Israel is a relative newcomer to brain research, which is mostly centered in the US and Europe, Vaadia said. But he said the country is gaining an international reputation for linking brain research with computer science and technology.

Edmond J. Safra, a Jewish Lebanese billionaire who owned banks in the US, Europe and South America, was listed as one of Forbes’ richest men when he was killed in his Monte Carlo home in 1999. Safra was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, another neurodegenerative disorder, at the time of his death. Ted Maher, a former Green Beret from Auburn, Maine, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for Safra’s death. Safra’s widow, Lily, will attend a dedication ceremony for the center Jun 8, according to the university. The center will be called the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences. The Safra Foundation has given millions to projects in Israel and elsewhere, including $30m to Hebrew University in 2005 to establish the Edmond J. Safra campus near Israel’s parliament building.

Brain research center to be built at Hebrew University
Judy Siegel-Itzkoviich, JPost, Jun 1 2009

Israel’s largest brain research center will be built at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at a cost of $130m, funded jointly by Lily Safra, president of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation, and by HU. She will announce the project officially during her visit to Israel this week. Planned to be the most ambitious initiative of its kind in Israel’s history and one of the most important in the world, it will be called the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences. The ELSC will pursue five different inter-cooperative fields of brain research: Genes, molecules and nerve cells in the brain; the structure and function of local neuronal circuits; electrical activity and the communication between brain areas, with the aim of understanding how senses, movement and thoughts are created; cognitive processes and will focus mainly on aspects of human brain function; and theoretical fields, computational aspects and building models of the nervous system, proposing new experiments and predicting their results. It will recruit an additional 15 members of staff to undertake the research.

The decision to invest in a center for brain sciences is based on the findings of an international monitoring committee, whose members include two Nobel laureates, Prof. Bert Sakmann and Prof. Richard Axel. The committee determined that the level of research in the field of brain sciences at HU is among the highest in the world, and that a newly equipped center will enable the university to be ranked among the top five in the world in this field. It will open immediately in existing facilities on the Givat Ram campus, with dozens of staffers, and be announced officially at the 72nd meeting of HU’s board of governors meetings next week. In addition, there will be lectures on the brain by leading researchers from the university and overseas.

HU president Prof. Menachem Magidor said that thanks to the leadership foundation, the university would be able to help solve one of the key scientific questions of the 21st century, how the human brain works, by discovering new medical approaches for treating neurological disorders and applying new technologies that imitate the activity of the human brain.” According to the acting director of the ELSC, Prof. Eilon Vaadia:

With an increasing aging population and a rise in the prevalence of neurological disorders in old age, brain research should be a key issue in modern society. In another 15 years or so, we as a society won’t have the financial capacity to support all the health problems for the growing ageing population, and so we must quickly find solutions.

Lily Safra said before her departure from her home in Geneva:

Understanding the brain is the premier challenge of our time, and I am confident that the Hebrew University’s investigators and students will make a profound impact. My husband Edmond would have been so proud that his name is linked to an initiative that brings new hope to families around the world suffering from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other devastating brain diseases. The foundation’s projects in Israel form one part of our activities that span over 50 countries. Our commitment to supporting our partners in Israel, as in other countries, remains the same, especially during these hard times, when so many foundations are being forced to reduce the scope of their work. My inspiration has always been my husband Edmond, who considered philanthropy to be a duty and devoted his legacy to helping the less fortunate now and for generations to come.

The foundation will donate an unprecedented $50m towards the project, the largest gift of its kind ever made for establishment of an Israeli research center. HU is seeking additional funding from its friends in Israel and around the world. It is estimated that, among its grants worldwide, the foundation will invest over $30m in Israeli non-profit organizations in 2009 alone. During the last decade, it has provided over $250m in assistance to educational, medical, scientific, cultural and community projects in Israel. In the summer of 2007, in commemoration of what would have been her husband’s 75th birthday, the foundation made special donations of $180,000 to each of 75 organizations in Israel, totaling $13.5m, in addition to its regular grant making program.

Lily Safra also will also inaugurate the Edmond J. Safra Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities at the University of Haifa. The foundation recently made a supplementary grant to this center for an educational enrichment program benefiting Israeli Arabs. This additional donation supplements a previous grant made to the University of Haifa as part of the foundation’s $31m program addressing the “brain drain” problem in which Israelis who studied here remain abroad after finishing their post-doctoral work abroad rather than returning to Israel universities. Edmond J. Safra, one of the 20th century’s most accomplished bankers and a dedicated philanthropist, established a major philanthropic foundation to ensure that needy individuals and organizations would continue to receive his assistance. Following his death in 1999, and now under the chairmanship of his widow, the foundation has assisted hundreds of organizations in over 50 countries.

two recent songs by death in june

Jesus, Junk, & The Jurisdiction

The Rule Of Thirds

this sounds ‘crystal clear’ alright

Israel ‘will not bow’ to US settlement freeze call
AFP, May 31 2009

JERUSALEM, Israel — Israel will not agree to US demands to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, a minister close to Netanyahu said. Transport Minister Yisrael Katz told army radio:

I want to say in a crystal clear manner that the current Israeli government will not accept in any fashion that legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria be frozen. The government will defend the vital interests of the state of Israel.

It was the first high-level reaction to a call by Obama on Thursday during a meeting with Abbas that Israel stop settlement activity. Israel makes a distinction between settlements the government authorised and so-called wildcat outposts, set up by zealous settlers without state approval. Netanyahu has said his government would dismantle the outposts, but that expansion of existing blocks would be allowed to continue.

another straw in the wind

Date: Wed, May 27, 2009 at 8:58 PM
Subject: Silver Star Presentation

A recipient of the Silver Star for gallantry during the Jun 8 1967, unprovoked Israeli attack on the USS Liberty describes the presentation ceremony, which was today, May 27 2009. The story of the attack and the disgraceful cover-up of the attack on a US intelligence ship is finally getting out. A survivor of the attack who was a radio operator is first up, and then the report by the recipient of the Silver Star.

From: ron
Sent: Wed 5/27/2009 8:35 PM
Subject: SS Presentation

This is very big that happened today. A presentation of the Silver Star to my good shipmate and buddy Terry Halbardier for patching an antenna together under fire to get a call out for help from the Sixth Fleet. This is earth-shaking because of the media coverage and no black-out at least so far.

Ron

—– Original Message —–
From: terryhalbardier
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 5:55 PM
Subject: SS Presentation

A quick update on the presentation at Nunes’ office today. IT WENT GREAT!!! Far better than I expected. Nunes was telling it like it is (except deliberate) He told the press that this attack was disgraceful and had not been properly investigated due to geo-political issues and he was glad to help the survivors get their story out to the public. I nearly fell over … Had 2 local TV channels and 3 newspapers. Several people filming and taking stills. After he “pinned” me, he opened it up to Q & A. As I answered, I held nothing back, I kept looking at Nunes, expecting him to hush me as I answered questions. He kept giving me the “go-ahead” look, SO I DID. The 2 local TV’s will furnish a CD of the interviews. I had mentioned that in the past, we would have reporters at reunions and the story gets killed by the editors, etc. They said that they are their own editors and no one higher up will override them. I probably spent close to 2 hrs telling our story and Nunes just stayed out of the way and didn’t try to moderate any thing I said. I gave out the Liberty web site and made clear that, today, I was not a spokesman for the LVA. I was telling what I KNOW to be verifiable FACTS and that we survivors simply want the truth to be known and the Official Record to reflect the FACTS that occurred – NOT just the Court of Inquiry whitewash to protect Israel. I passed out copies of the Citation that said we “were attacked by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea on the fourth day of the Six Day War”. Don Pageler was the only Survivor there, but Ray McGovern, ex-CIA friend of Bryce’s, flew out last night from Arlington, Va and drove down this morning. I noticed that he and Don were giving interviews also. You could tell that many didn’t know the story about the attack and were hungry for info. In the time I have been writing this email, I have had 2 calls from 2 newspapers with more questions.

Later, Terry

col. ralph peters says “destroy all monsters” (yup)

maybe israel killed rafiq hariri

Spies, Lies and Mr. Lebanon’s Demise
Rannie Amiri, CounterPunch, May 29 2009

There are agents, like Mahmoud Rafea, who confessed to have delivered bags with explosives. Other collaborators have confessed to have carried out field reconnaissance missions. Others have facilitated the entrance and exit of Israelis after accomplishing their missions. This is what is meant by executive agents. The door must be opened wide … this Israeli path should be scrutinized so as to reach a place where we would find information about many crimes, particularly 2005 onwards. – Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, commenting on the recent spate of Israeli spy arrests during a rally marking the ninth anniversary of the removal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, May 22 2009

Israel suffered two defeats in Lebanon, and both were against Hezbollah. The first occurred in May 2000 when Israeli troops were expelled (or withdrew, depending on which side of the border you are on) from southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation. The second was the premeditated yet disastrous 34-day war waged in the summer of 2006. It may have succeeded in ravaging Lebanon but it certainly did not vanquish Hezbollah. They fought the mighty Israel Defense Forces to a draw, and in the minds of many this itself constituted victory. Israel has neither forgiven nor forgotten these losses. For them, the war against Lebanon and Hezbollah did not end in 2000 or in 2006 but continues today, albeit in different form. And events of the past several weeks revealed exactly what Israel has been up to. There have always been Lebanese nationals acting as spies for Israel, but this should come as no surprise. They fought on their behalf for two decades after all, as members of the now-defunct South Lebanon Army during the occupation of the south. Although initially receiving little attention, a crackdown on these spy networks began late last year. Rapid advances in breaking them have evidently occurred, as dozens of suspects have been taken into custody since April. Shlomo Brom, former chief of strategic planning for the Israeli military, said:

If the Lebanese authorities say they have caught Israeli spies, there’s a high likelihood that it’s true.

The Lebanese government is currently holding 30 suspects and has already charged 21 with spying for Israel in an ever-widening investigation. Those detained include an army colonel, a retired general, a deputy mayor, a truck driver and a mobile phone salesman, which two managed to escape across the border into Israel before being caught. Confiscated high-tech equipment and electronics used to transmit information to the Mossad were put on display by Lebanese Internal Security afterward. Because intelligence provided by certain agents may have led to increased destruction in the 2006 war, which killed 1,200 Lebanese, the vast majority civilians, Nasrallah demanded the death penalty be levied against those found to be complicit. As he declared in his speech on “Resistance and Liberation Day”:

I ask on your behalf and on behalf of the families of the martyrs and the wounded, on behalf of those whose homes were demolished and those who paid taxes to rebuild their infrastructure, I demand that the collaborators who provided the enemy with the data that had caused all of this, be sentenced to death.

In the midst of unraveling and dismantling these espionage rings operating in Lebanon, a report penned by Erich Follath surfaced in the sensationalist, pro-Israel German weekly Der Spiegel implicating Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The allegation was immediately dismissed by Hezbollah, who claimed it was simply an attempt to sully its image prior to the upcoming June parliamentary elections as well as sow discord between Sunnis and Shias. But does it have any merit? Not a single piece of credible evidence was presented to substantiate Follath’s claim. No sources were named, no documents were produced and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon charged with investigating the Hariri assassination denied ever coming to those conclusions, let alone discussing them with Follath. The spokeswoman for the Tribunal said:

We don’t know where the Der Spiegel magazine got their information from, and we don’t know where they brought this story from. No one in the prosecutor’s office has spoken to the German magazine about anything.

According to Nasrallah:

The Israelis and the Americans wondered how to scuttle the election and influence its outcome. Der Spiegel was their answer.

The case against Hezbollah is not only flimsy, but one likely fabricated by the author’s anonymous “sources.” It was discounted or simply ignored in Lebanon, even by Hezbollah’s opponents; Saad Hariri refused comment and Walid Jumblatt cautioned it may “derail justice.” Readers are referred to the trenchant reporting of Dr. Franklin Lamb who clearly exposed the gaping holes in, and unanswered questions of, Follath’s article. It is important to appreciate that the killing of “Mr. Lebanon” in Feb 2005 shook the country and ultimately led to the creation of the opposing March 8 and March 14 Alliances. It sharply divided Lebanese along sectarian lines and led to mutual recriminations and prolonged political paralysis. The confluence of the aforementioned events – discovering the extent of Israeli spy networks in Lebanon, followed by publication of the Der Spiegel article two weeks prior to crucial elections accusing Hezbollah of ordering the hit on Hariri – is no coincidence. So how do they relate to one another? Nasrallah stated it candidly:

The Israelis are acting preemptively before it is discovered that their spy networks were involved in assassinations in Lebanon.

Could it be that information fed from Israel to a friendly German periodical was done not just to foment Sunni-Shia tension prior to the June election or divert attention away from an imploding espionage ring, but to obfuscate Israel’s role in Hariri’s murder (which may be disclosed by their captured spies)? Unlike his son Saad today, Rafiq Hariri had good personal relations with Nasrallah and Hezbollah generally – facts Follath conveniently overlooked – making their participation in his murder especially unlikely. But division and destabilization in Lebanon works to Israel’s advantage, and instigating political disorder and civil turmoil has always been its modus operandi. Indeed, the fallout from Hariri’s assassination nearly sparked another civil war. Should Israel be implicated in his death however, all of Lebanon’s political parties and confessional groups would unite against them in an instant. The cases of four pro-Syrian generals thought to be involved in the crime and held for four years without charge were recently dismissed by the Special Tribunal due to lack of evidence and recanted witness testimony. When it becomes clear the case against Hezbollah is likewise without merit and Israeli espionage rings operating in Lebanon are fully exposed, the Special Tribunal should waste no time in investigating Israel for its possible involvement in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

grace slick: her mistress’s voice

Phyllis Pollack, an interview with Grace Slick, CounterPunch

Grace on Paul Kantner (excerpts)

China’s father has something going on, where he is so nasty, he doesn’t have any friends. Well, I wouldn’t do it anyway, even if Paul was an angel … But they said guys have offered us millions of dollars to get back together, and do a tour. I wouldn’t do it. Jack and Jorma will not play with Paul, not for any amount of money. Now, that is a person who has fucked up, because he didn’t find out what it is that makes him do that. Because he can be really funny and bright and loving, and then if you say something that doesn’t ring right with him, he’ll start in on you, as if you’re the devil himself. Now I find that amusing. So when Paul calls up, because I talk to him all the time, and he’ll start, and I’ll think, “Oh, here we go with the tennis game.” So I’ll throw one back at him. I’ve got a real nasty mouth. And I’ll throw one back at him, I’ll lob one over the net, and see if he can lob one back. So I don’t care, I’ll play that game for as long as until I get bored with it, and then I’ll stop. It has to do with some kind of a problem he’s got going, and you’re in the room, or you’re the one on the phone. I could just as easily when I talk to Paul, give the phone to someone else, and if they say the wrong thing, he’ll take off on them. It doesn’t have anything to do with them or me. It has nothing to do with anything. It’s like a board game. That doesn’t have anything to do with anything, either. You’re just playing a game for a while. Sometimes hopefully, it’s more amusing than it is sad. Sometimes it’s sad, sometimes you watch people … In other words, China’s dad. I just love him, because he’s bright, he’s funny, he’s interesting to talk to, but he’s got a problem that has created a situation for him, where now he doesn’t have any friends really, and he doesn’t understand why. And sometimes, most of the time, he tries to act like everything’s cool. But sometimes, he’ll say the saddest things to me. Like he’ll say, “I think about my mom a lot, and I just don’t understand why China’s not talking to me,” and he’ll go on about how it is with him, and he doesn’t know why it’s that way. He won’t do any form of therapy or corrective drugs.

Maybe because he doesn’t want to know why.

Yeah, maybe he doesn’t.

A lot of people want to stay in their state of denial.

Everybody’s afraid of change.

So about not playing with Paul…

Oh, yeah. For no amount of money, Jack and Jorma will not play with Paul, because he has a personality defect. It’s weird, because I’ve had conversations with people ever since I heard about the gig at the Greek (Theater), and I’m like there are only two original members, and it doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t understand how people can look at this as the Jefferson Starship. That’s illegal actually. We made this up, I don’t know, maybe forty-five years later. You can not go out, or sell stuff, or do anything under the name “Jefferson” without all of the members of the group being involved. Well, how they’re doing it is by saying, members of the Jefferson …

No, they’re billing it as “Jefferson Starship plays the music of the Jefferson Airplane.”

Oh, wow. Okay. That’s how they’re doing it. (laughs)

That’s how they’re doing it. And I looked at it, and I said, “How can they do that?” It makes no sense, especially without Grace. How do you do play the music of the Airplane without Grace? What’s the point?

Well, they’re not supposed to use the name Jefferson Starship, either … The people who own the names are me, because we bought Paul out about fifteen, twenty years ago. So we’ve had all these lawsuits going. We said, “Paul, we gave you eighty thousand dollars to buy you out of the corporation,” because that’s what it was, a corporation. “You’re not supposed to be using it.” (laughs) And we let it go for a while, because we thought, “Well, the dude needs to make money, what the fuck?” But then it started getting so where he was selling like cheesy shit, and his manager was doing creepy stuff, and he was billing it as Jefferson Airplane, and we had to bring another lawsuit to get him to stop it. And now, they can, that is legal, to say …They’re not supposed to use the word “Jefferson,” though, but they can use “Starship plays Jefferson Airplane,” that’s legal. I can’t believe he’s dumb enough to start doing it again. I’m going to have to start suing him again.

none of these people sound much like muslims to me

Taliban keep grip on kidnapped Canadian
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, May 30 2009

KARACHI – For Pakistan, there are still two kinds of Taliban, the good and the bad. Hafiz Gul Bahadur of the North Waziristan tribal area is reckoned as good Taliban. He is Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s rival and has signed a ceasefire agreement with the Pakistani security forces. Being a member of the Shura of Mujahideen, he only fights against foreign forces in Afghanistan. However, his involvement in the abduction late last year in Bunna, North-West Frontier Province, of Canadian journalist Beverly Giesbrecht, who converted to Islam and who is now known as Khadija Abdul Qahhar, exposes the problems of dealing even with “good” Taliban, and the mess they can cause because of their connections with Pakistan. People involved in the backroom negotiations for the release of Khadija, 52, say that she suffered heart problems this week and that her condition is serious. She has a history of heart problems. But the militants holding her will not release her as there is still haggling over the amount of ransom to be paid. Former ISI official, retired squadron-leader Khalid Khawaja, who has been involved in the negotiations for the release of Khadija and her 18-year-old translator Suleman, told Asia Times Online on Friday:

We had set up all the measures for her release. Maulana Fazlur Rahman was involved on behalf of the Canadian government. Initially, the militants did not want to release her, saying she was an American proxy. But after Fazlur’s involvement, they agreed to let her go for a sum of 60 million rupees. The deal was finalized and the Canadian government had arranged the money. Then another development took place and everything was spoiled. Everything was being routed through the political agent in North Waziristan. He demanded that he receive 50% of the payment. According to him, a portion of the money had to go to Governor’s House in Peshawar, which would then pass on a share to the President’s Office in Islamabad. This demand needed new approvals in the Canadian system, and the Canadians lost interest. Now we are getting information that Khadija has had a heart attack, but the militants are not ready to release her. Our strongest link to the militants was Shah Abdul Aziz, but he was apprehended by the security agencies on Wednesday, and now our only option is to appeal to the militants through the press.

In Apr 2002, the month she converted to Islam, Khadija launched Jihad Unspun, an aggregation Internet site for news and opinions related to the Middle East and the “war on terror”. It was considered strongly anti-American. Asia Times Online tried to reach two spokesmen at the President’s Office, Farhatullah Babar and Farhanaz Ispahani, but neither responded.

perhaps he should have told us sooner?

Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager, claims roadie
James Tapper, Mail (UK), May 30 2009

Rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager as part of an insurance scam, a new book by one of former aides claims. Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit when he was 27, but the exact circumstances of his death have always been a mystery. Now James ‘Tappy’ Wright, one of the rock star’s roadies, claims that Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffery, confessed to killing him. Jeffery is said to have made a drunken confession a year after the star’s death in Sep 1970. An ambulance crew found Hendrix’s body in a room at the Samarkand Hotel in West London.

Wright claims Jeffery was worried that Hendrix was preparing to find a new manager when their deal was due to end in Dec 1970. According to Wright, Jeffery said he went to the hotel room and stuffed Hendrix full of pills and wine. The book, called Rock Roadie, out next month, recalls Wright’s life with various rock stars during the Sixties, including Tina Turner and Elvis Presley. In it, Wright claims Jeffery made the confession at his apartment in 1971, two years before he died in a plane crash. He writes that Jeffery told him:

I had to do it, Tappy. You understand, don’t you? I had to do it. You know damn well what I’m talking about. I was in London the night of Jimi’s death and together with some old friends …we went round to Monika’s hotel room, got a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth …then poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe. I had to do it. Jimi was worth much more to me dead than alive. That son of a bitch was going to leave me. If I lost him, I’d lose everything.

Wright claims that Jeffery told him he had taken out a life insurance policy on Hendrix worth $2m, with Jeffery as beneficiary. The official cause of death was ‘barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit’, and the coroner recorded an open verdict. This was vital for Jeffery. Had the cause of death been suicide it would have given the insurers an escape clause. The ambulancemen who found the body said he was discovered alone in the hotel room, lying in his clothes on his back, with a gas fire burning and the door wide open. There is no record of who called 999. John Bannister, the surgeon who tried to revive Hendrix at hospital, said he was convinced he had drowned in red wine. Yet Hendrix had very little alcohol in his bloodstream. In 1992 he wrote:

I recall vividly the very large amounts of red wine that oozed from his stomach and his lungs, and in my opinion there was no question that Jimi Hendrix had drowned, if not at home then on the way to the hospital. At the time I felt that he had either been on sedative tablets, to sleep or otherwise, and that he had imbibed copious amounts of red wine prior to going to sleep. I would suspect that he regurgitated the red wine and drowned.

as usual, I wonder who they really worked for

Azerbaijan seen as new front in Mideast conflict
Sebastian Rotella, LA Times, May 30 2009

A year ago, police in Baku, Azerbaijan, intercepted a fleeing car and arrested two Lebanese men. The car contained explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers and reconnaissance photos. Raiding alleged safe houses, police foiled what authorities say was a plot to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan. The prosecution remained largely a secret until this week, when closed court proceedings began for the two Lebanese, charged alongside four Azeris with terrorism, espionage and other crimes. The choice of Baku last year reflects Iran’s influence, said Matthew Levitt, a former intelligence chief at the US Treasury Department now working at WINEP. He described the alleged plot as “in the advanced stages.” Levitt said

The Iranians have a history of a presence there. And they wouldn’t mind undermining the country, given Azerbaijan’s Western leanings.

Azerbaijan, a moderate Muslim nation of 8 million, finds itself in a delicate spot. It has strong commercial and diplomatic ties to Iran, on its southern border. About a quarter of Iran’s population, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are ethnic Azeris. At the same time, the Azerbaijani government has a good relationship with Israel and Western nations, which have helped develop an oil pipeline originating in Azerbaijan and running through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Baku has long accused Tehran of interfering in its affairs. In 2006, 15 Azeris were charged with plotting violence against Israelis and Westerners with training and direction from Iranian security forces. That case resulted in surveillance that contributed to the discovery of last year’s plot, and in early 2008, security forces detected contact between local militants and two Hezbollah operatives: Ali Karaki, whom anti-terrorism officials describe as a veteran of Hezbollah’s external operations unit, and Ali Najem Aladine, described as a lower-ranking explosives expert. The duo allegedly traveled back and forth from Baku to Iran and Lebanon in early 2008. They used Iranian passports, stayed in luxury hotels and led a cell that laid the groundwork for an attack, anti-terrorism officials say. The cell allegedly conducted reconnaissance on the Israeli Embassy, which is housed in the Hyatt Tower high-rise complex along with the Thai and Japanese embassies. The group cased other targets, developing plans to bomb a radar tower, prosecutors say. The Azerbaijani investigation concluded that the suspects intended to array three or four car bombs around the embassy and set them off simultaneously. The group had hundreds of pounds of explosives, allegedly supplied by Iranian spies, and intended to accumulate more, said the officials familiar with the investigation.

Investigators believe that a bombing was weeks away when the suspects spotted the surveillance in early May 2008. Police moved in, but a number of Lebanese, Iranian and Azerbaijani suspects escaped by car into Iran, anti-terrorism officials assert. In conversations with Azerbaijani authorities, Iranian representatives denied any role, Western anti-terrorism officials said. But at a preliminary hearing in Baku this week, charges against the six suspects included the allegation that they had ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the elite force that is said to work closely with Hezbollah. The investigation implicated senior officers of the Revolutionary Guard in the plot, the anti-terrorism officials say. Karaki identified a Revolutionary Guard official named Fadhli as his contact in Iran and described bringing militants to Iran for training, officials say.