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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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December 12th,
2009 - Contractor Gets 9 Years in Army Bribery Case |
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Contractor Gets
9 Years in Army Bribery Case By Guillermo Contreras San Antonio Express-News December 12, 2009 A former civilian Defense
Department contract specialist who worked with four Army officers charged
with taking millions of dollars in bribes during the war in Iraq was
sentenced Thursday to more than nine years in prison for tax evasion. Tijani Ahmed Saani, 53,
worked with former Army Maj. John Cockerham of San Antonio, who was sentenced
last week to more than 17 years in prison in what officials said is the
largest bribery case in the history of the Defense Department. Saani was
sentenced in Washington, D.C., to 110 months in prison and ordered to pay a
$1.6 million fine and $816,485 in restitution to the Internal Revenue
Service. Saani has dual citizenship
in Ghana and the United States. He is a former resident of Kuwait City,
Kuwait, but has homes in the United States. As part of a plea deal, he
pleaded guilty in June to five counts of filing false tax returns between
2003 and 2007, admitting unreported taxable income was at least $2.4 million. Saani worked for the Office
of Military Cooperation from 2002 until 2007 at a contracting office at Camp
Arifjan, Kuwait, that was awash in corruption. Cockerham was deployed to Camp
Arifjan in 2004 and 2005. Saani admitted he failed to
report his ownership interests in bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Jersey
Channel Islands, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Saani used those
accounts to help conceal his unreported income and to send and receive wire
transfers totaling nearly $3.6 million, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors claimed Saani
could provide no proof that he obtained the money legitimately and said in
court papers that “the pattern of activity that occurred in Kuwait between
2002 and 2007 means the $3.6 million likely represents proceeds from illegal
bribery or embezzlement involving military contractors in Kuwait.” The prosecutors noted that
four of Saani's co-workers received bribes for rigging contracts there. They
include Cockerham, 43, and his now-retired fellow Army majors, James Momon,
37, Eddie Pressley, 39, and Christopher H. Murray, 41. Cockerham took $9.6 million
in bribes of the $15 million he was to collect before he was caught. Momon
admitted taking $1.6 million in kickbacks, while Murray pleaded guilty to
accepting $245,000 in bribes. Both are awaiting sentencing. Pressley, who was
Cockerham's barracks mate, is awaiting trial in Alabama on charges that he
took $2.8 million in bribes. Another contracting officer at Camp Arifjan,
Army Maj. Gloria Davis, killed herself in December 2006 after she admitted to
investigators that she took $225,000 in bribes. A former Army
sergeant-turned-contractor, Terry Hall, is charged with bribing Pressley and
others at Camp Arifjan. Most of the companies in
question were based in the Middle East and have not been charged, though some
have been blackballed from contract work for the U.S. government. External link: http://www.mysanantonio.com/military/79109697.html |