Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

Manuel C. Diaz, another Jeb Bush business associate, runs a commercial nursery with headquarters in Homestead, Florida. Manny Diaz's previous business sidekick, Charles Keating, Jr., is now sitting in a California prison. But during Keating's days at the helm of the $6 billion Lincoln Savings, Diaz became a Keating insider, confidant, and beneficiary. For example, in 1987, as federal regulators closed in on his crumbling empire, Keating instructed his attorneys to transfer a large chunk of prime Phoenix real estate to Diaz, for just $1. And right before filing for personal bankruptcy, Keating transferred his $2 million mansion on the island of Cat Cay in the Bahamas to Diaz.

At the same time Diaz was palling around with Keating, Jeb, then serving as Florida's secretary of commerce, arranged a private meeting for Diaz with Florida's Republican governor Bob Martinez. Promptly afterward, Diaz Farms landed a lucrative, $1.72 million, state-highway-landscaping contract -- despite the fact that Diaz had little prior highway-landscaping experience. This raised howls of protest and charges of political influence-peddling from other contractors. But state officials explained that the extraordinary speed in issuing the contract had occurred because the state was anxious to spruce up 113 miles of freeway for the coming visit of the pope.

Did Jeb know about Diaz's business association with Charles Keating? Did he have reason to believe Diaz was qualified for the Florida highway contract that he helped Diaz land? These are the kinds of detailed questions that the Florida chairman of the Bush re-election campaign refuses to answer. [Source: Mother Jones, 9/1/92]

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- As murder mysteries here go, few are as intriguing as the execution-style killing of an Iranian Muslim cleric with links to a key suspect in the alleged JFK airport bombing plot.

Mohamed Hassan Ibrahimi was abducted by two gunmen in April 2004. His body was found several weeks later, face down in a shallow grave. He had been shot twice in the head. His mouth was taped and his hands and feet were tied.

The homicide made a brief splash and then turned into a cold case over the next three years -- until earlier this month, when prosecutors in New York charged three Guyanese men and one Trinidadian with plotting to bomb the city's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Ibrahimi was a close friend of one of the men accused, Abdul Kadir, a former opposition member of Guyana's parliament. Ibrahimi received money from Iran and changed it at a currency exchange business where another of the accused, Abdel Nur, sometimes ran errands, and where a suspected al Qaeda member and former South Florida resident wanted by the FBI, Adnan el Shukrijumah, was spotted in 2003. The business' owner was slain last month.

Kadir, Nur and Trinidadian Kareem Ibrahiim are jailed in Trinidad pending U.S. extradition requests. The fourth man accused, Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese-born U.S. citizen, is being held in New York. Two of Kadir's sons were arrested in Guyana on Sunday on charges of illegal possession of ammunition.

At the time of Ibrahimi's disappearance and death, Guyana's Muslim organizations were quick to deny speculation that the case was linked to international terrorism or clashes between Shiites and Sunnis. Other speculation centered on a robbery attempt gone bad or a settling of business scores.

NO MOTIVE FOUND

Acting Guyana Police Chief Henry Greene told The Miami Herald he would not speculate on who killed Ibrahimi or why.

''Initially, we felt it was a kidnapping. But there was no demand for a ransom,'' said Greene, who was head of criminal investigations at the time. ``We could not find a motive for the killing. Just another one of those strange killings.''

But the slaying was certainly of importance to the Iranian government. Four Iranian police officers and Tehran's ambassador in neighboring Venezuela came to ask about the case. Even television crews from Tehran turned up in this South American nation.

''We don't know if it was normal practice,'' Greene said of Iran's interest. ``It looked to me like there was a national interest.'' ...

Labels: Miami, news