US and Albanian authorities announced probes on Tuesday into allegations that the US ambassador to Albania concealed the Chinese origins of ammunition sent to supply Afghan security forces.
The US State Department said its inspector general would conduct a “thorough, fair and transparent” internal investigation of the matter.
Department spokesman Tom Casey said Ambassador John Withers “fully expects that the facts will exonerate him and his staff of any and all the allegations that are out there.”
“I have absolutely no reason to believe that anything different than that will happen,” Casey said.
Albanian authorities have questioned dozens of people over the affair.
“I am determined to uncover the truth,” Albanian Attorney General Ina Rama said. “The investigations will continue and we are determined to follow every lead.”
The allegations were made by House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman in a letter sent on Monday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that was published in several newspapers.
The letter said Withers endorsed a plan by Albania’s defense minister to disguise the illegal Chinese origins of several boxes of ammunition shipped from Albania to Afghanistan.
It also said a Miami-based company working under an US Army contract bought the ammunition to supply Afghan security forces, despite the fact that US law prohibits trading in Chinese arms.
In the Albanian capital, Withers denied any involvement in the trafficking of Chinese weapons.
The US embassy said in a statement that Withers was “aware of the claims.”
It added that Withers was studying Waxman’s letter “and will prepare a full refutation of any allegations against the US embassy or himself once he has done so.”
Waxman said Withers “held a late-night meeting with the Albanian defense minister at which the ambassador approved removing evidence of the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition being shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a US contractor.”
The meeting took place on Nov. 19 at the behest of the Albanian minister, who wanted to know how to respond to a New York Times reporter’s request to visit the US contractor’s operations in Tirana, where several boxes of Chinese ammunition were stored.
The ammunition was being repackaged to disguise its origins and shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by AEY, a Miami Beach arms-dealing company, Waxman said.
At the time, AEY was under a contract with the US Army as “the main munitions supplier for Afghan security forces” despite US law prohibiting trading in Chinese arms, Waxman said.
AEY head Efraim Diveroli, 22, and three other people were charged on Friday for selling prohibited Chinese ammunition, presented as being of Albanian origin, to the Pentagon, he said.
The arms smuggling case may be linked to seven arrests in Tirana after a blast in a military depot in March killed 26 people and injured 302. The incident gave rise to suspicions of possible arms trafficking in the country and led to the resignation of defense minister Fatmir Mediu, with whom Withers had met.
In related news, US-led coalition airstrikes killed 22 Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan yesterday after insurgents launched the latest in a string of attacks on government buildings, the coalition said.
Rebels armed with rockets and machineguns attacked the Sarobi district center in eastern Paktika Province, which borders Pakistan, but were pushed back by Afghan forces, a coalition statement and a spokesman said.
Militants later attacked the district center of neighboring Gomal, forcing the Afghan security forces to call in coalition warplanes for help, the spokesman said.
In the neighboring province of Paktia, Taliban fighters attacked another district center, triggering clashes, which ended with no casualties, said a coalition spokesman who would not be named.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS