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March 2, 2002
Venice, Florida, flight school linked to CIA
Firm has 'green light' from local DEA
By Daniel Hopsicker
�
New evidence linking the owner of the Venice, Florida, flight school
that trained Mohamed Atta to the Central Intelligence Agency surfaced
last month.
The new evidence adds to existing indications that Mohamed Atta and his
terrorist cadre's flight training in this country was part of a so-far
unacknowledged U.S. government intelligence operation which had
ultimately tragic consequences for thousands of civilians on September
11.
Far from merely being negligent or asleep at the switch�the thrust so
far of allegations expected to be aired at joint Senate and House Select
Committee hearings this month�the accumulating evidence suggests the
CIA was not just aware of the thousands of Arab student pilots who began
pouring into this country several years ago to attend flight training,
but was running the operation for still-unexplained reasons.
During a controversy over the awarding of a bid for an aviation
maintenance facility in Lynchburg, Virginia, what had begun as a purely
local spat took on national importance when it unearthed connections
between Rudi Dekkers�the Dutch national whose Huffman Aviation trained
both of the pilots at the controls of the airliners which crashed into
the World Trade Center�and the CIA.
Good-by, Magic Dutch Boy; Hello, Jerry Falwell
The CIA's links to Dekkers surfaced when an unknown company called
Britannia Aviation was mysteriously awarded a five-year contract to run
a large regional maintenance facility at the Lynchburg, Virginia,
Regional Airport.
At the time of the award virtually nothing was known about Britannia
except that the company worked out of a hangar at Rudi Dekker's Huffman
Aviation at the Venice, Florida, airport.
But when Britannia was chosen over a respected and successful Lynchburg
company boasting a multi-million dollar balance sheet and more than 40
employees, aviation executives there began voicing concerns to reporters
at the local newspaper . . .
"There was some sentiment that there might be something suspicious about
Britannia Aviation," stated business reporter Chris Flores of the
Lynchburg News-Advance. "There was a clear feeling that nobody knew who
these guys were, or where they were coming from."
The suspicion deepened when it was discovered that Britannia Aviation is
a company with virtually no assets, employees, or corporate history.
Moreover, the company did not even possess the necessary FAA license to
perform the aircraft maintenance services for which it had just been
contracted by the city of Lynchburg.
At a Lynchburg City Council hearing on the dispute, there were vocal
objections from observers baffled as to why a company with virtually no
qualifications was being awarded a contract to take over a large
regional maintenance facility designed for major carriers like Delta and
USAir Express.
"It was as if someone with a learner's permit from the DMV got picked to
drive Richard Petty's car at Daytona," explained one local aviation
executive and NASCAR fan.
"It made absolutely no business sense that anyone could see."
Be True to Your School
When Britannia Aviation's financial statements were released after
prodding by the local aviation community, they revealed Britannia to be
a "company" worth less than $750.
Paul Marten, a British aircraft mechanic who was the Britannia executive
in attendance, rose to say it wasn't true. Britannia's assets, he was
sure, amounted to more than $750, though how much more was a question he
left unanswered.
A Lynchburg city official attempted to wave aside objections that
Britannia was insolvent with a joke. "At least they have more on their
balance sheet than Enron," said Lynchburg City Councilman Robert Garber.
Trying to save further embarrassment, Britannia executive Marten
reassured those in attendance that at Huffman's hangar at the Venice
airport they had for some time been successfully providing aviation
maintenance services for Caribe Air, a Caribbean carrier.
And that is how the world learned that under Rudi Dekkers' FAA license
Paul Marten's little dummy front company worked for a notorious CIA
proprietary air carrier which, even by the standards of a CIA
proprietary, has had a particularly checkered past.
Caribe Air's history includes "blemishes" like having its aircraft
seized by federal officials at the infamous Mena, Arkansas, airport a
decade ago, after the company was accused by government prosecutors of
having used as many as 20 planes to ship drugs worth billions of dollars
into this country.
What a Coincidence, Eh?
Ironically, the company also made headlines a dozen years ago in a
scandal in which one of the principals, Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi, was
reportedly killed just this past weekend.
A Caribe Air C130 had been shot down over Angola with the loss of
everyone aboard, including a US congressman's nephew. The plane was on a
mission for the Angolan government, it was discovered, laden with a
cargo of whiskey and cigarettes.
Observers at the time had noted wryly that, while the CIA had for years
been covertly supporting the other side in the Angolan conflict, Jonas
Savimbi's UNITA rebels, it now appeared to be playing both ends against
the middle.
At least when it came to planeloads of swag.
Though the congressman with a dead nephew was not amused, the matter was
quickly dropped.
Curiously enough, Caribe Air is today controlled by an offshore bank
located on the Caribbean island of Dominica, Banc Caribe, a private bank
that may be being investigated currently by authorities pursuing the
names involved in Enron's secret offshore partnerships, many of which
have the name "Caribe" in their title.
When four offshore bankers were arrested by United States law
enforcement agencies in November and charged with money laundering, Banc
Caribe Ltd., of Dominica was named in one of the affidavits filed.
This is no doubt merely the sheerest of coincidences.
When details of the Lynchburg controversy first reached Venice aviation
executives they professed amazement. "No one here had ever heard of
Britannia Aviation before," one told us. "And this is a very small
airport."
After our inquiry he called a DEA source of his at the airport, this
aviation executive told us, to ask what he knew about Britannia
Aviation.
"This guy got all excited as soon as I asked," this executive stated.
"He immediately wanted to know why I was so interested in Britannia.
Finally he reluctantly told me that Britannia had a 'green light' from
the DEA at the Venice airport, whatever that means. He also said the
local Venice Police Department (which has mounted round-the-clock
patrols at the airport since Sept.11) had been warned to leave them
alone."
Paul Martens had no comment on the report when we dropped in on him at
his office in a Huffman Aviation hangar at the Venice airport. He was
just an honest British businessman, he told us. He had ties to
Lynchburg, Virginia. He had met his wife there, while she was a student
at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.
Her father was a pastor for the Reverend Falwell.
"Jerry Falwell got bailed out in the early '90s by a Lynchburg
businessman whose son is married to Billy Graham's daughter," a
Lynchburg observer told us. "Since then he runs a missionary service
called World Help, which flies all over the world."
Many of the flight trainers who had trained the Arab terrorist pilots
had also flown missions out of the Venice and Sarasota Florida airports
for such Christian missionary services as televangelist Pat Robertson's
Operation Blessing.
It was "Islamic fundamentalist" Osama bin laden who cloaked his covert
activities under the cover of religious charities. Were we now
discovering that our own government intelligence agencies used the same
ruse?
What was going on here?
Christian-linked or not, why did a transparent dummy front company like
Paul Marten's Britannia Aviation have a "green light" from the DEA?
A green light for what?
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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