The head of Canada’s spy review board wired $200,000 in personal funds to a notorious international lobbyist in a questionable aid-for-infrastructure deal in Africa, the National Post has learned.Arthur Porter, the federally appointed chairman of Canada’s Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), described in three interviews how he directed cash from a foreign bank account to Ari Ben-Menashe, a jet-setting, Montreal-based businessman who often acts as a middleman in negotiations between the Russian Federation and developing countries.
“This is a file that I’ve tried to put in the very back recesses of my mind,” Dr. Porter told the National Post, in response to his dealings with Mr. Ben-Menashe. “Maybe it was a hoax,” he added. “It was a little too skatey…. It was not traditional business as I understand it. It was a peculiar deal.”
And precarious business for a man in, as he says, “sensitive positions.” Dr. Porter was appointed to SIRC’s five-member committee by Canada’s Privy Council Office in 2008, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister’s Office. He was made its chairman last year. An oncologist and hospital administrator by profession, he is one of only two physicians ever to be appointed to SIRC’s committee, which historically has been dominated by former politicians.
The committee reviews on a regular basis the activities of Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and examines complaints made against it. According to SIRC, its committee members have “access to all information held by CSIS, no matter how highly classified that information may be,” with the exception of federal cabinet secrets.
In June, 2010, Dr. Porter signed a consultancy agreement prepared by Mr. Ben-Menashe and his privately owned, Montreal-based company, Dickens & Madson (Canada) Inc. Dr. Porter signed on behalf of his own company, Africa Infrastructure Group (AIG), which is one of numerous private “entities” he says he maintains in his native Sierra Leone and in other countries.
The contract obliged Mr. Ben-Menashe to secure a US$120-million grant from Russia “for infrastructure development in Sierra Leone managed by the Africa Infrastructure Group.” Dickens & Madson also agreed to “use our best efforts to secure an opportunity for Sierra Leone to be considered as a site for the development of new port facilities for the use of the Russian Federation for non-military purposes.”
With his signature, Dr. Porter promised to notify Sierra Leonean President Ernest Koroma of the arrangement and to obtain his consent. He also agreed to wire a $200,000 payment to Dickens & Madson for its services as intermediary. Dr. Porter made the payment from an account he holds in Florida to Mr. Ben-Menashe’s busy J.P. Morgan Chase account in New York.
Wesley Wark, a specialist in the history of intelligence services and national security policy at the University of Toronto, says Dr. Porter’s dealings with Mr. Ben-Menashe should raise concerns in the federal government. Prof. Wark said Dr. Porter may have put himself in a conflict of interest, by working with an international lobbyist on private business dealings outside of Canada.
“There should be very close government scrutiny of this activity or a request for a temporary suspension of such activities,” Prof. Wark said. “There is at least an appearance of a conflict of interest, and there is the potential reality of a conflict of interest.”
Paule Gauthier, who was SIRC chairman from 1996 to 2005, said on Monday that a person in that position who was conducting such business would “certainly” have to disclose it, “to the place where he was appointed. To the Prime Minister’s Office.”
The National Post asked the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office to explain what vetting and disclosure requirements it places on SIRC appointments, and to explain whether Dr. Porter has made all appropriate disclosures. The PMO did not respond. PCO spokesman Raymond Rivet said in an email Monday that Dr. Porter “is subject to the Conflict of Interest Act, the Lobbying Act and the Ethical and Political Activity Guidelines for Public Office Holders.”
Dr. Porter would “also have undergone a background check which would have included a check by the RCMP of police records, a security assessment by CSIS pursuant to section 13 of the CSIS Act, a check with the CRA [Canada Revenue Agency] and a check with the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.”
Dr. Porter could recall only that his Curriculum Vitae was reviewed in the PCO prior to his 2008 appointment to SIRC and that staff there “asked me lots of questions…I believe I’ve disclosed everything. They know what I do.”
The $120-million that he had expected to come from Russia never materialized, he added. His $200,000 payment to Mr. Ben-Menashe was refunded. The two men are completely at odds over why their deal failed.
Mr. Ben-Menashe says he now has other, bigger problems. Since August, four Canadian banks have declared they no longer want his business and will close his accounts. Last week, he received a letter from Caisse Desjardins du Québec that terminated their relationship. In the letter, the bank explained it “has information that you are a politically exposed foreign person within the meaning of the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act. As well, the [Caisse] was informed of your involvement in the activities of arms trafficking.”
Mr. Ben-Menashe says the letter made him feel “sick and abused.” He says he has done nothing wrong. He is a Canadian citizen and has not been accused of breaking any laws. A lawyer representing him on the banking troubles, Neil Peden, says that he’s “never encountered anything like this before.”
Mr. Ben-Menashe has no criminal record, but he does have a controversial past. One needn’t be chairman of Canada’s spy review committee to discover that.
A former Israeli government employee, Mr. Ben-Menashe was arrested in the United States in 1989 and charged with illegally attempting to sell three military transport airplanes to Iran. He went to trial and was acquitted in 1990; a jury believed his account, that he had simply acted on orders from his government in Israel to attempt the aircraft sale. He then wrote a memoir called Profits of War, filled with accounts of international espionage and conspiracies he says he either participated in or was privy to.
“This is the book the Israelis tried to stop, written by the man they said didn’t exist — the book that the CIA tried to sabotage,” reads the book’s provocative dust cover.
By 1993, Mr. Ben-Menashe had married a Canadian woman and was settled in Montreal, where he set up his lobbying firm, Dickens & Madson.
According to Canadian government correspondence obtained via access to information requests, Mr. Ben-Menashe began briefing Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAIT) officials on international machinations. He eventually hired one of his DFAIT contacts, an intelligence specialist, to assist in his Dickens & Madson business.
He is no stranger to National Post readers; this newspaper has described many of Mr. Ben-Menashe’s contracts and relationships, including his multi-million-dollar consultancy deals with Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe. In one notorious episode, Mr. Ben-Menashe met in his Montreal office with then-Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and recorded him purportedly plotting to assassinate the ageing dictator. Mr. Tsvangirai was charged with treason in Zimbabwe and put on trial. It was the talk of Africa, and Mr. Ben-Menashe was the prosecution’s star witness.
The trial ended with Mr. Tsvangirai’s acquittal. Mr. Ben-Menashe resumed his exotic consulting activities from his home base in Montreal.
Arthur Porter insists he knew nothing about Ari Ben-Menashe and his controversial past when they met for the first time last year. “I didn’t check him out, obviously, as thoroughly as I should have,” Dr. Porter said in an interview on Saturday. “I was introduced to him by a guy whom I trusted.”
That person is Hermann-Josef Hermanns, another Montrealer. Like his friend Dr. Porter, Mr. Hermanns also keeps a residence in the Bahamas, where he represents a Swiss-based bank, Compagnie Bancaire Helvétique.
Dr. Porter initially told the National Post he had no knowledge of such a bank, but later acknowledged that some of his own private companies are “associated” with it. Among other interests, Dr. Porter and his family have mining stakes in Sierra Leone, a country battered by years of war and corruption. It is also known for its mineral deposits, especially diamonds and gold.
Dr. Porter insisted on holding his first meeting with Mr. Ben-Menashe in his office in downtown Montreal. Besides serving as chairman of SIRC, Dr. Porter is the full-time chief executive of one of Canada’s largest public health care providers, McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), which has almost 12,000 employees. He is also an Air Canada director and sits on myriad corporate boards in Canada and abroad. He runs a cancer clinic in Bahamas and makes regular trips to his native Sierra Leone, where, he says, he has direct access to political leaders including its President, Mr. Koroma.
Indeed, Mr. Koroma recently conferred upon Dr. Porter an extraordinary title: “His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone.” Dr. Porter has used the designation in written correspondence; his title appears on personal letterhead, under the Sierra Leonean coat of arms. Ambassador Plenipotentiary is an exceedingly rare title defined as someone with full powers of a head of state. Dr. Porter says that in his case, the title is merely symbolic and that it confers no powers. He is merely a “goodwill ambassador” for Sierra Leone, he insists.
Even so, says intelligence and security expert Wesley Wark, a SIRC member should not represent himself as an Ambassador Plenipotentiary. “A sensible person would say that even an honorific diplomatic appointment from outside the country creates an appearance of a conflict of interest for SIRC,” says Dr. Wark. He adds that it also raises concerns about “potential foreign interference in Canadian affairs,” which is something that CSIS director Richard Fadden has warned about.
Dr. Porter describes himself as a successful member of Sierra Leone’s diaspora, a committed “Sierra Leonophile” who is always on the lookout for opportunities “that would help the development of that poor little west African country.”
Mr. Ben-Menashe says he was impressed with the well-connected doctor. “He’s a very bright guy,” he told the National Post in an interview. He was struck especially by Dr. Porter’s political ties. Inside Dr. Porter’s Montreal office, where he was interviewed by the National Post, sit dozens of framed photographs of himself posing with famous politicians and heads of state: Dr. Porter with George W. Bush; Dr. Porter with Stephen Harper; Dr. Porter with Dick Cheney. And Dr. Porter with Sierra Leone’s President, Ernest Koroma.
For his part, Dr. Porter says he found Mr. Ben-Menashe to be “an intriguing guy, to be honest. I didn’t think he was a bad man initially.”
The two men signed their $120-million consultancy agreement in June 2010 and continued to meet that summer, and discussed other possible ventures abroad. Dr. Porter acknowledges that he made a number of visits to Mr. Ben-Menashe’s Montreal home, which is a short drive from his own residence, a $1.2 million penthouse condominium close to downtown. Dr. Porter says he invited Mr. Ben-Menashe to a cocktail reception that he hosted. Mr. Ben-Menashe accepted the invitation; both men recalls that he spent little time at the party, held at Dr. Porter’s residence.
Dr. Porter says that his deal with Mr. Ben-Menashe soon “went by abeyance.” According to Dr Porter, Mr. Ben-Menashe “tells a good story and I passed it on, as requested, to the government, to the folks there, they wanted to do bridges and road development and things like that, and then nothing really transpired…We went to the ministry of the government and they put all of the things that they were going to spend this [$120 million] on. Five million here, five million here, 35 million, international market, housing, stadiums. “
He insists that AIG fulfilled its end of the contract. “The president knew,” said Dr. Porter. “Absolutely. I told him personally.” It was Mr. Ben-Menashe who did not live up to the bargain, he said. The Russians never became involved, he said.
Mr. Ben-Menashe tells a different story. There was nothing shady about the $120-million consultancy agreement that he prepared, and that Dr. Porter signed, he says. The Russians were prepared to deliver the grant money to Sierra Leone and to pursue options to build their port facility there, he adds, but not until they had seen approval and consent from President Koroma. “They never did [see his consent],” insists Mr. Ben-Menashe.
He suspects — and Dr. Porter denies — that had any infrastructure money arrived in Sierra Leone, it would have been diverted and not used for the purpose intended.
Dr. Porter has offered conflicting accounts about AIG, which is registered in Sierra Leone and which he and his family own. He first described himself as “officially the chairman.” Subsequently, he said he hasn’t been chairman since December, that the present chairman is a business associate from Sierra Leone named David Allen. And subsequent to that, he said that Mr. Allen is actually AIG president. “He’s sort of in transition,” offered Dr. Porter. “He will be the chairman.”
Dr. Porter was asked to identify members of his AIG board. “I don’t have [their names] on me at the present time,” he said. He then offered one: Victor Kamara, whom he suggested was once “Sierra Leone’s ambassador to Italy.” But he was mistaken. “I got the wrong name,” he admitted later. He offered the name of another business associate of his in Sierra Leone. “I got him mixed up with one of the consultants.”
Dr. Porter said he wanted to put the botched deal with Mr. Ben-Menashe behind him. “I began to see that maybe there wasn’t anything there. You know, maybe it was a hoax,” he explained. “I think if my [$200,000] deposit not been returned I probably would have become much more excitable over it. As it is I just said, ‘Oh well, you know, nothing lost, nothing gained.’ And moved on. The only thing that was perhaps a little bit irritating for me is, I’d made representations to the government that this was available, so there was a little crow to eat.”
But in October 2010, he wrote a letter of reference on behalf of Mr. Ben-Menashe, who was having trouble with the Bank of Montreal; the bank had apparently grown suspicious of its client’s large money transfers and wanted to close his accounts.
“I have had the opportunity to interact with Mr. Ben Menarche [sic] on a number of projects involving the funding of infrastructure projects in Africa,” Dr. Porter wrote to the bank, using Privy Council letterhead with SIRC’s mailing address at the bottom. “In all my dealings with him, I have found him honest and straightforward. Although I do not know the nature of the issues that you may have, I have not been given any cause for concern with respect to business dealings that I have been part to. I would be happy to discuss this further with you.”
Asked why he would write such a letter when his $120-million infrastructure deal hadn’t materialized and he had come to suspect he’d been “duped” by Mr. Ben-Menashe, Dr. Porter offered a bizarre explanation. “I wrote this letter in a very cagey way,” he said, “hoping, when I write letters of reference that say you may call me at this number, is that if you want more, I’ll be happy to talk to you privately.”
Given another opportunity to explain, Dr. Porter said that “it’s not a very kind letter. It’s actually a letter if they read between the lines, you’d be, this is the sort of letter that if I had received from someone, if you sent me a letter of reference like this, I would be a little bit intrigued. I would make a phone call.”
Despite everything that happened between them, Dr. Porter still had not examined Mr. Ben-Menashe’s background until last month. “Maybe I should have done more research,” he concedes. He conducted an initial “cursory” review — limited to Mr. Ben-Menashe’s profile on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia — after being asked by the National Post to explain their curious relationship. Yet he claimed to know nothing of Mr. Ben-Menashe’s principal role in the Morgan Tsvangirai prosecution. The disturbing episode is the most prominent entry on Mr. Ben-Menashe’s Wikipedia profile.
“Ari was involved in that?” asked Dr. Porter, Canada’s spy review boss. “Oh my God. I did not know that.”
Origin
Source: National Post
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