Amir Hussein Ardebeli, an Iranian National, spent five years in a US Federal Prison following a meeting in a Tbilisi hotel back in 2007. He was entrapped in a sting operation by US special agents. The case is well known internationally, books have been written about it and there are plans to even make it into a movie. But none of these column inches are based on the actual story. Most press coverage, such as that usually found on the internet, appears to have been organised by the US government, and this makes the motivation of its contents highly suspect.
The fact is that Amir Hussein Ardebili was tortured and threatened with death to force him to plead guilty and so that he would have some hope of getting out of an American Federal prison alive. Emails and discussion with human rights defenders have made clear that the legal process he was subjected to, both in Georgia and in the United States, was a farce, riddled with corruption and a violation of American, Georgian and International law.
The case for the prosecution
The American government prosecuted Ardebili on the basis that he was a “prolific” smuggler of military parts, and was working in Iran to supply the Iranian military with the dual-use goods they required. Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested him in October 2007 after posing as arms dealers and luring him to Tbilisi, Georgia.
Soon he found himself standing trial in a US court on fourteen counts of violation of export controls, conspiracy and money laundering. He was sentenced to five years for smuggling approximately $1 million worth of American goods annually to Iran, goods capable of being used in attack aircraft, missiles, missile guidance and target acquisition systems.
The goods Ardebili was accused of selling were phase shifters. These do indeed have multiple potential uses, like the domestic light switch. They are also perfectly legal items which are bought and sold daily all over the world. They can be found in a multitude of mail order catalogues, on innumerable websites and in thousands of specialist stores. They are no more military equipment than the machines used to make soldiers’ socks are military equipment.
However Ardebili was abducted, jailed, abused and convicted under American law without ever having previously set foot in the United States. This was accomplished, according to his own testimony, “by devising a scheme to lure him to Georgia for a business deal because of the American government’s close ties with Georgia.” He was sent to the US to stand trial via a “rendition”, by what can only be described as a “kangaroo court”, under extraterritorial laws.
The case for the defence
Ardebili is an Iranian national who had never left his own country prior to the 2007 meeting in Tbilisi. He had just started up his electronic components business, making it unlikely he was a “prolific” dealer, and was not connected with any illegal group. He has only ever dealt in legal, freely available electronics, having no interest in getting involved in criminality, and paying the price, when he had a family to feed.
Ardebili was lured to Georgia by a team of undercover agents whose mission was to entrap somebody and put them in a US prison, for the sake of doing it, to show that US law was cross border. For larger geopolitical purposes, this person had to be an Iranian. Ardebili, as an Iranian national, was not subject to US laws and broke no laws on the territory of Georgia.
The agents contacted Ardebili by email under the cover of a so-called company which wanted to sell him electronics. After he had transferred the money he was asked to go to Georgia to meet them, so that they could deliver these parts. This meeting lasted eight hours. During it the “vendors” repeatedly asked him to come with them to visit a warehouse containing machine guns and other weapons they wanted to sell him, but he continually refused, saying that he did not deal in deadly weapons, only legal electronic components.
This might have persuaded the agents that if they were trying to catch a high level arms dealer they should look elsewhere. Instead, they chose to enhance their career prospects by fabricating charges. They ignored Ardebili’s repeated refusals to deal in weapons, denied he had made them, and then kidnapped him. Despite the fact he was not a US citizen, and had never been subject to US law, Georgia illegally extradited him to the US, knowing he would stand trial on the basis of legally selling legal electronic components.
The case against Ardebili was that it was illegal under US law to buy these parts for Iran. However as an Iranian national, not subject to US law, he was free to buy them, as are the dozens of other dealers in electronic components who buy and sell the same parts every day. If anyone was breaking any law, it was the US vendors, the very people the agents were claiming to be, by selling them to Iran.
For two years Ardebili was kept in solitary confinement for breaking laws he was not subject to. He was denied access to the attorney of his choice and told false stories about what the legal consequences of his actions would be, such as being placed in an international blacklist.
In order to serve a sentence and get out alive, he decided to plead guilty to all charges, as the US government was demanding. Despite this plea, the prosecution never uncovered any evidence that Ardebili was in fact guilty of breaking any law he was subject to. Therefore, given the circumstances of his confession, and the fact he was not subject to US law, the judge should have thrown the case out. Instead he sentenced an innocent man, who was not under his jurisdiction, to five years in a federal prison.
Georgia eventually apologised for its part in this sting. But this had no effect on Ardebili’s sentence. No one in Georgia has been prosecuted for sending a foreign national who had seen subject to a sting operation to be banged up by a US court.
Ardebili is now branded an international terrorist and has lost his wife, his home and his job. He is entitled to more than simple compensation for the criminal acts committed against him by Americans and Georgians who have so far got away scot free.
Why?
This case sets a chilling precedent, one in which laws and borders are not respected and the legal process is violated on many levels.
The American agents solicited this Iranian businessman with various proposals which would be difficult for any owner of a fledgling business to turn down, especially in the Middle East. It is no coincidence that these solicitations, and Aredebili’s subsequent detention, coincided with efforts within the UN to impose sanctions on Iran over its alleged weapons programme.
Part of the US government scheme was to get Ardebili out of Iran into a friendly third country, Georgia. Iran would object most strongly to what they were doing. The Saakashvili government of Georgia would be only too happy to arrest and extradite Amir with no questions asked. The fact that Georgia did not actually have an extradition treaty with America was a mere technicality in this case.
The Americans insisted on having a face-to-face meeting with Ardebili so that they could be sure he was a “deal maker and not a faker”, as they put it. His credibility on the line, he obviously turned up. The agents never requested any prepayment, and offered extremely favourable terms, but maybe you would think that is what US customers usually do, when you don’t know any better as you have only just started your business.
US Homeland Security installed an undercover camera to record the hotel meeting. Although the meeting lasted over eight hours, the tapes presented lasted a few minutes. Having carefully set Ardebili up to use certain words and sentences, they edited the tapes to present these statements out of context to fit their own agenda. All the parts of the discussion in which he refused to countenance having anything to do with weapons or illegal activity have disappeared.
Amir now writes, “I have to admit that I was a young and very naive businessman travelling with my seventy-five-year-old father. It was my first and last business trip outside of my native Iran. They tried their best to get me to visit their warehouses in Tbilisi, which they claimed were full of ammunition and military equipment my country could have used. The special agents repeatedly said that they were prepared to ship everything my country needed to Iran with no prepayment and, to sweeten the deal, I only needed to pay after reselling it.”
Continuing a meeting at which such things were being said may indeed be seen as naïve. But the question remains: should a legal businessman have to take into account the possibility that he is being set up by US special agents in sting operation, and will then be extradited to that country to stand trial when he is not even a citizen or subject to its laws?
Maybe you?
Ardebili was given a false name when he became part of the US justice system. Consequently he cannot obtain the evidence he needs to clear his name, as it is stored under the false name. The same false name prevented his family, friends and government finding out where he was and being able to help him.
There is ample evidence that America and the American court system worked in close cooperation with the law enforcement agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to ensure that Ardebili would never receive a fair trial, motivated as they were purely by the desire to make an example of and prosecute an Iranian national. The same US has allowed some companies and individuals suspected of illegally trading with Iran to escape punishment. Granting Ardebili’s request for evidence concerning his own case would expose the names of those companies, many of which have ties to Senator John McCain and the State of Arizona.
If this can happen to Amir Hussein Ardebili, it can happen to anyone. The US can declare you a public enemy, without needing any evidence, and remove you from your country and prosecute you under laws you are not subject to. This isn’t a theoretical possibility; it is what actually happened in this case. Is this a risk we want the “policeman of the world” to put us all under?
Henry Kamens, columnist, expert on Central Asia and Caucasus, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
