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joinafrica features |
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 Nigerian
Vice President Under FBI Investigation.a44.htm
... U.S Rep's dealings with Ghana & Nigeria
being investigated
... Feds raided home of Nigerian Veep
WASHINGTON (Aug 27) -- On the same day that federal agents
executed search warrants on the New Orleans and Washington,
D.C., homes of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, the FBI also raided
the Maryland residence of Nigeria's vice president, seeking
evidence of possible payments to officials in that African
nation.
A State Department official confirmed the Aug. 3 search of the
Potomac, Md., home of Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar and
his wife, Jennifer. The agency referred all questions about the
raid to the Justice Department, which declined to comment.
A source familiar with the investigation said subpoenas show
agents were looking for records showing whether Jefferson, D-New
Orleans, paid, offered to pay or authorized payments to
officials in the government of Nigeria or Ghana.
The subpoenas, described to The Times-Picayune, seek documents
related to Jefferson's dealings with Abubakar and the vice
president of Ghana, Alhaji Aliu Mahama. Jefferson returned from
a five-day visit to Ghana in mid-July, about three weeks before
the FBI raided his homes.
The subpoenas focus in part on a telecommunications deal
Jefferson was trying to engineer in Nigeria over the past year,
according to documents and those familiar with details of the
investigation.
Jefferson spokeswoman Melanie Roussell said the eight-term
congressman would continue to decline comment on the federal
probe. He has only said that he is cooperating with federal
investigators.
It's not clear how Vice President Abubakar or his wife, a
doctoral student at American University in Washington, might be
connected to the telecommunications deal. A staffer at the
Washington-based AIDS foundation set up by Jennifer Abubakar
said the couple are in Nigeria. Efforts to reach them and the
vice president of Ghana for comment were unsuccessful.
Jefferson's attorney, Mike Fawer, has said he believes the FBI
had been conducting a sting operation against his client.
Quoting anonymous law enforcement sources, The Washington Post
reported that the operation had been in the works for a year and
was investigating whether Jefferson pocketed hundreds of
thousands of dollars from business deals. The Post reported that
agents found a large amount of cash in Jefferson's freezer.
Experts said that the U.S. Justice Department has been
increasingly focused in recent years on prosecuting cases under
the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars corporations
or their agents from paying, offering to pay or authorizing
payment of money or anything of value to further their business
interests abroad.
Sources familiar with the telecommunications deal said that
Jefferson was attempting to smooth the way for iGate Corp., a
small Kentucky company, to introduce its high-speed broadband
technology to Nigeria's fast-growing telecommunications market.
Rare move
Legal experts said it is unusual, if not unprecedented, for FBI
agents to raid the home of an elected official from a foreign
nation. Foreign diplomats normally are given immunity from
prosecution. There have been some well-publicized cases in which
American prosecutors have been unable to pursue allegations of
wrongdoing against diplomats, ranging from failure to pay
traffic tickets to alleged sexual assaults.
"Sometimes diplomatic immunity can be used as a shield from
prosecution, but not as a shield from investigation," said
Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, an associate professor of
international law at Stanford University.
But the law isn't so straightforward for visiting foreign
elected officials. Usually, officials request and are given
immunity covering the time periods of their visits to the United
States.
Immunity, however, likely would not be given to an official,
even a sitting vice president, for a private residence within
the United States, especially if he wasn't present at the time
the material listed in the warrant was being sought, according
to an official familiar with State Department guidelines on the
subject. The official said it is almost certain that the search
got the approval of top Justice and State Department officials
given the "possible effect on foreign relations" of such a
search.
A neighbor said that Abubakar doesn't use the Potomac home more
than a couple of months a year. The sprawling colonial is in one
of the Washington area's most exclusive communities.
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