–US court documents now reveal
Convicted drug trafficker Roger Khan may have paid US$250,000 for the infamous spy equipment on which he had a list of names that he called the “target list”, according to a recent US court document.
The document has also revealed that Khan and David Narine, who was sentenced to time served last week, may have had some connections. It was revealed that Khan, during the lead up to his expected trial had instructed his attorneys to call their colleague who was representing Narine at the time to find out if Narine would have talked to them. The document also revealed that Khan had recorded conversations with former army major David Clarke.
“[Khan] said Nancy is definitely lying about the amount paid on the new equipment. He said that Nancy wanted (US) $500,000 for the new equipment. He worked out a deal saying he would pay (US) $250,000 and then when the equipment was delivered he would give Nancy the old equipment, which she could sell for the balance,” wrote Khan’s former lawyer Arianne Irving following a meeting with him on November 8, 2007. The “Nancy” referred to is Nancy Salvador who worked at the Spy Shop in Miami, which reportedly sold the equipment to Khan on behalf of the UK-based Smith Myers company.
Irving’s written words were revealed in a lengthy memorandum recently written by Judge John Gleeson explaining why he decided to acquit Irving after a jury had convicted her on a number of witness-tampering related charges.
Her co-accused, Robert Simels for whom she had worked, was subsequently sentenced to 14 years in prison.
In his written decision, the judge said that the evidence produced against Irving fell considerably short of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she had the knowledge and intent necessary to establish her participation in any of the attempted witness-tampering offences or in the conspiracy to tamper with witnesses.
According to the judge, in a memorandum written by Irving following her November visit with Khan in a New York jail it was made clear that the meeting concerned telephone conversations intercepted by Khan in Guyana, and in particular the equipment he used for that purpose.
At that time the defence was attempting to obtain information about the cost of the equipment, and how it was sold “to the Guyanese government by the manufacturer, Smith Myers.”
Irving’s memo after the meeting said: “I showed [Khan] the info from the laptop, but he said I need to go on the desktop and click on the Smith Myers folder and then a screen with a grid will come up. He said in the menus in that screen I should find something that says target list, he said I need to print out the target list and then he will be able to tell us which calls are relevant.”
The judge, who concluded in his decision that Khan had “ties to high-ranking government officials” in Guyana, pointed out that Khan had intended to argue that he was assisting the Guyana government in fighting crime and Simels had intended to support the argument by contending that equipment was purchased by the government and given to Khan to fight crime.
This was the information that came out during Simels’ trial and Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy, who has vehemently denied any links to Khan or the equipment, was named as the government official who facilitated the purchase of the equipment.
Simels was charged following his meeting with paid informant Selwyn Vaughn – the man who said he was once a part of Khan’s phantom squad. It was while he was in the US, that he was “instructed by members of [the] Phantom Squad, who were still in Guyana to contact Simels to assist in Khan’s defence.” Vaughn did contact Simels and all of the conversations were recorded and that was Simels’ downfall.
It was during those meetings that the discussions were raised about finding and bribing Leslyn Camacho – wife of former army major David Clarke. Money was passed to Vaughn to bribe Camacho to convince her to lie on Clarke–the expected star witness had Khan’s case gone to trial. Clarke was recently sentenced to time served for drug trafficking.
‘Son’
Another person Khan was particularly concerned about was someone only called ‘Son.’ According to Irving, Khan was worried about ‘Son’ since he knew nothing about him and could not remember meeting him.
“[Khan] said Son was involved in late 2003, and during that time Roger was working on getting the timber company, and would NEVER talk about drugs inside wood…,’” Irving wrote.
She said Khan wanted them to tell one ‘Kevin [Ledge]’ to find the brother of ‘Son’ in Georgetown so that Simels can meet him to arrange a meeting with ‘Son’. Khan wanted them to be careful as he did not want the US government finding out he was associated with ‘Ledge.’
Meanwhile, in one of the recordings Simels was heard telling Vaughn: “So Clarke is the guy we need to nail. Now either we need to have him desire not to testify, which is unlikely. He’s made whatever deal he’s made. He’s gonna get a visa to stay here permanently, I believe. I don’t know whether if (the) boys down there will be able to get me his wife to talk to me.” Following his time served sentence, Clarke was allowed to remain in the US.
Later in the conversation, Vaughn suggested that Clarke be influenced through his natural concern for his mother: “One thing I’ve learned is that a man, whether he’s a criminal, or he’s a preacher, he always values his mother, because if you’re not certain with anyone else to be at your side, your mother very likely will be there. You don’t want anything to happen to her.”
And following one of her meetings with Khan Irving wrote: “[Khan] said the small laptop has more calls from David Clarke, so we should get into that one and look at those calls.
“[Khan] says that Limpy operated the equipment in the beginning and then after [Khan] was arrested in December 2002 that was the end of Limpy working with the system.”
She continued: “[Khan] would rent houses in his name, and then have the equipment set up there, and if there was a power outage or something like that he would talk Brian through restarting the system, but Brian never listened to calls or set up the tap.”
The judge also revealed that Irving had instant messenger conversations with a named employee of Khan’s timber company on Kaow Island who promised to get the “base of the equipment” no “matter what it takes”.
It was also revealed that Khan wanted his lawyers to find one George Allison who he suspected would have testified against him. Allison–it was not clear if he was related Donald Allison who was reportedly killed on Khan’s orders–was charged with a drug related offence last year February shortly before Khan pleaded guilty. The charge was dismissed against him in July of last year.
Simels was recorded as telling Vaughn in one of the conversations: “…He said you can deal with George however you think that George has to be dealt with in terms of finding out where he is in this thing. If he’s cooperating, that [is] a bad thing. Um, if he’s not cooperating and he wants to talk about Clarke, um, then we want him to talk to us about Clarke. I, I don’t think he cares about Chinaman [George Allison] in terms of, cause I don’t think they’d put the, the, the heat on him, that screwing around with the mother [David Clarke’s mother] would.”
The judge noted that it could have been inferred that Simels was authorizing Vaughn to take whatever steps were necessary, including acts of violence, to silence George Allison.
Steered
The prosecution was very careful in its dealings with Simels as the judge revealed in July of 2008 Vaughn’s US handlers decided to “steer Vaughn’s discussions with Simels away from acts of violence and toward bribery of witness.”
And during a conversation with Simels, Irving and Vaughn, Simels told Irving to call Sean Belfield–a former bodyguard of Khan who is now on the run after being implicated in a double murder–to find one “Ricky” in Guyana.
“And, and, and, um then tell Sean, when he locates him, to speak to me personally and I’ll tell him what I want done,” Simels said to Irving.
And giving an idea of the kind of power Khan wielded the judge revealed that during a search of Simels’ law offices the government found a letter dated May 13, 2007 from Khan to Paul in which Khan “…asked Paul why he did not ‘slap an individual named [name of a Robb Street businessman] when he lied to Khan’s lawyers.
“In addition Khan also instructed Paul to go to Alicia’s parents and tell them they have proof she laundered money and that she lied about it to the government. He further wrote that other information would come out and that it would be a ‘real risky business,’” the judge wrote.
The judge said that in exchange for a US$1.4 million retainer fee, Khan got a criminal lawyer who supplemented his arsenal of investigative and forensic skills with illegal tactics.
