Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - A trial set to begin in Palm Beach County Circuit Court this week promises to deliver riveting accusations of international intrigue in the tradition of a Hollywood blockbuster or a Tom Clancy novel.

The characters alone are larger than life.

On one side is Gulf Stream billionaire Harry Sargeant. A former Top Gun fighter pilot turned oil shipping magnate and GOP fund-raiser extraordinaire, he is accused in court papers of hiring a former CIA agent to help him bribe high-level Jordanian officials as part of a complex scheme to swindle a former business partner out of millions.

On the other side is the spurned business partner, Mohammad Anwar Farid Al-Saleh. A London-educated civil engineer who has a home in Palm Beach, Al-Saleh is the brother-in-law of Jordan's King Abdullah II. According to Sargeant's attorneys, Al-Saleh had become an embarrassment to the royal family. They claim the king ordered Sargeant to cut off Al-Saleh, believing the tens of millions he had already earned from the U.S. Defense Department contracts were obscene.

Swirling in the background are allegations from a congressional leader that the $2.7 billion in fuel contracts the two are fighting over constituted war profiteering. In a 2008 letter to then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., accused Sargeant of bilking taxpayers out of $180 million in a series of contracts his companies were awarded to provide fuel to troops in Iraq. A partial audit by the Defense Department, released in March, concluded that the United States paid Sargeant's companies up to $204 million more than it should have.

Adding further drama is Sargeant's political past. A formidable GOP fund-raiser, he became finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party in 2006 when Charlie Crist, his Florida State University fraternity brother, became governor. Sargeant stepped down in 2009 after GOP presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John McCain returned $50,000 in contributions linked to Sargeant. The Washington Post and The New York Times suggested the contributions were illegal because the donors were foreign nationals and they may have been reimbursed.

Lawyers' speech limited

It is unlikely the jury that is expected to be picked Monday will hear all the juicy details churning around the case. Circuit Judge Robin Rosenberg last week made a series of rulings that will limit what lawyers on both sides can say.

Al-Saleh's lawyers can talk about a $9 million payment made in 2007 to "Pasha," who they claim was Gen. Mohammad Dahabi, then head of the General Intelligence Directorate, the Jordanian equivalent of the CIA. However, Rosenberg ruled, they can't use the word "bribe."

Further, she prohibited Al-Saleh's lawyers from suggesting the payment may have spurred a criminal investigation into whether Sargeant violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It prohibits American business people from using cash to curry favor from foreign officials. Likewise, she ruled they can't talk about any Jordanian corruption probe of Dahabi.

She also reined in Sargeant's attorneys. Unless the king testifies or something else unexpected happens during the three-week trial to change her mind, she ruled they can't mention any statements King Abdullah purportedly made, instructing Sargeant to cut Al-Saleh out of the profits.

Sargeant's attorneys argued vehemently that the jury should be told of statements they claim the king made to Sargeant and former CIA agent Marty Martin several times, including during a meeting in South Florida.

However, Sargeant's attorney Roger Kobert said he will present evidence that could convince jurors that the king was very much involved. In January 2009, Al-Saleh was summoned by the director of Jordan's intelligence agency and ordered to sign a document, agreeing to stop pursuing Sargeant in court. The intelligence agency, Kobert said, "is the king's right arm."

In a deposition, Al-Saleh admitted he signed the document but had no intention of ending the legal battle. Surrounded by gun-toting agents, he said, he had no choice. "He could have locked me up," Al-Saleh said.

He said the king never told him he was upset by his involvement in the fuel deal or that he had asked Sargeant and Martin to cut ties with him.

"I'm aware of one thing, that Harry Sargeant retained Marty Martin to try and screw me out of this business," he said. "That is what I know."

Al-Saleh contends that he, Sargeant and their mutual friend Mustafa Abu-Naba'a in 2004 formed the International Oil Trading Co. to bid on the lucrative contract to deliver fuel to troops in Iraq. They were to split the profits equally.

His involvement, he claims, was key. To get the contract, bidders had to have a letter of authorization from Jordan to transport the fuel across the country. As husband to Princess Alia, he had easy access to Jordanian leaders and could secure the needed paperwork.

He was paid $27.9 million during the first three years of the contract. He claims he is owed $52.4 million. With interest, $74.9 million.

The payments stopped after Sargeant hired Martin in July 2007, he says. Martin, who spent most of his 18-year CIA career in the Mideast, also had contacts with Jordanian leaders. Instead of splitting the profits with Al-Saleh, Sargeant paid the Delray Beach resident an estimated $600,000 annual salary to keep Jordanian officials happy, claims attorney Barry Ostrager, who represents Al-Saleh. Among Martin's duties, Ostrager said, was paying $9 million to Dahabi to assure IOTC could continue to operate in the country.

Alleged speculation

Sargeant's attorneys call Al-Saleh's allegations "rank speculation." The $9 million was sent to Taurus Trading, a Jordan-based firm that became IOTC's new partner in the military fuel delivery business. The money was deposited in an account designated by the Jordanian intelligence agency, Kobert said.

"There is zero evidence whatsoever that a penny of that money stuck to the hands of anybody at GID," he said.

Further, he claims, Al-Saleh wasn't a partner in various companies Sargeant and Abu-Naba'a formed to get subsequent defense contracts and so didn't deserve a share of those profits. Al-Saleh's knowledge of that is well-documented in emails, letters and minutes of corporate meetings, he said.

"This whole fairy tale that they've invented about bribes and all this other garbage that there's not any evidence for, it's a joke," Kobert said.

West Palm Beach attorney Louis Silber, who also represents Al-Saleh, downplayed the national and international implications of the trial.

"The core of this case is fraud," he said. "What this case really is about is two individuals who took advantage of someone else."



*Palm Beach post News