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MALTATODAY 24 March 2019

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NEWS 5 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 MARCH 2019 MATTHEW VELLA LAWYERS for Pilatus banker Ali Sadr Hasheminejad have asked the US courts to dismiss all counts of the indictment, claiming they are "vague and overbroad allegations that do not sufficiently specify the charges". The latest submissions are part of Hasheminejad's lawyers' attempts to attack prosecutors' charges on money laundering, bank fraud, and breach of US sanctions against Iran, for fail- ure to state an offence and lack of specificity. Hasheminejad is charged with having used the US and Swiss banking systems to trans- fer millions from a Venezuela housing project to his Iranian family's construction business in Turkey, in breach of sanc- tions. Lawyers are now insisting that the indictment against Hasheminejad, whose private bank Pilatus had its licence sus- pended in Malta after his arrest in February 2018, has failed to provide critical details about all the alleged offences. These include details on the identity of Hasheminejad's al- leged co-conspirators, the vic- tims of his alleged bank fraud crimes, the individuals or enti- ties in Iran to whom services were exported from the United States, and the alleged false misrepresentations underlying the bank fraud charges. "Because the indictment fails to provide Sadr with a mean- ingful understanding of the 'essential facts constituting the offense charged,' it must be dis- missed," lawyers told the court. The indictment alleges that the Iranian International Housing Corporation, a private company incorporated in Iran and alleg- edly controlled by Hashemine- jad and his family, contracted with a Venezuelan state-owned company to build 7,000 hous- ing units in Venezuela for ap- proximately $476 million. The Venezuelan company paid IIHC for its construction ser- vices by sending wire transfers in US dollars from its foreign bank accounts to foreign bank accounts in Switzerland be- longing to Clarity and Stratus Turkey, two companies out- side Iran designated by IIHC as agents to receive payments on the project. The lawyers insisted that the indictment does not allege that any funds were sent to Iran. "Nor does it allege (at least with any specificity) that Sadr acted on behalf of the Government of Iran, any Iranian financial institution, or any Specially Designated National under the Iranian Financial Sanctions Regulations. The only specific sanctions violation alleged in the indictment is the claim that Sadr conspired to 'export' from the United States certain 'inter- national financial transactions' to Iran." The lawyers told the court that the Venezuelan company made approximately fifteen payments to Stratus Turkey and Clarity, totalling approximately $115 million. "While these payments allegedly occurred between April 2011 and No- vember 2013, the alleged con- spiracies cover a much longer period from 2006 to May 2014. The government should not re- quire Sadr to speculate about such critical information… Far more is needed to allow Sadr to adequately prepare his defence and avoid surprise at trial. Un- der these circumstances, par- ticulars are warranted." Hasheminejad's lawyers have also argued that the US govern- ment obtained multiple search warrants for his email accounts under false and misleading pre- tences, "including, most nota- bly, claims that Sadr's family has 'substantial ties to the Gov- ernment of Iran' and that some of the fund transfers at issue were for 'covert projects' be- tween the Government of Iran and Venezuela. Both claims are false." Evidence submitted in court shows US investigators re- quested access to various email accounts of Pilatus directors and owners in 2014, to find evi- dence of allegations made by a confidential informant. But defence lawyers insist the warrants authorised the in- discriminate seizure of fifteen years' worth of Sadr's personal and business-related email ac- counts "for any evidence that tended to reflect a broad array of criminal conduct without any temporal or other restric- tions. For these reasons, the search warrants were unconsti- tutional." Lawyers now want the court to order a Franks hearing, which determines whether a police officer's affidavit used to obtain a search warrant that yields incriminating evidence was based on false statements by the police officer. The lawyers claim the warrant made false and substantiated statements about Hashemine- jad's links to the Iranian gov- ernment. "The April 2014 af- fidavit falsely claims that Sadr, his company (Clarity), his fam- ily, and his father's company (Stratus Group) have 'links' to 'entities that have been sanc- tioned by OFAC… for support- ing Iran's nuclear weapons pro- gram, proliferation activities, and support of terrorism.' But the affidavit cites no evidence to support this significant claim, and in fact, neither Sadr nor any of the individuals or entities described in this para- graph have any connections whatsoever to nuclear weapons or terrorism." The lawyers are also attack- ing the charge of sanctions breaches over the use of US dollars to Iranian beneficiar- ies, because the money was never directly wired to Iran from Venezuela, or stayed in- side the United States or other European countries. "The government ultimately abandoned the false claim of US dollar transactions be- tween Venezuela and Iran in the October 2015 affidavit. Effectively admitting that its previous affidavits were deceit- ful, the government changed 'large, US-dollar transactions between Venezuela and Iran' to 'large, US-dollar-denominated payments… which primar- ily originated from Venezuela' and 'disguise[d] the Iranian connection of the recipients'. Crucially, the Iran sanctions regime prohibits the export of services 'to Iran'… But the Iran sanctions regime does not pro- hibit the export of services to recipients with an 'Iranian con- nection'. To the extent Sadr has been able to locate the docu- ments underlying the incom- pletely identified transactions involving unnamed countries, none of them involve a receiv- ing bank account in Iran." Leasing may be co-funded through European Union Funding and Bilateral Funds LEASING OF PREMISES TO HOUSE DEPARTMENTS AND ENTITIES WITHIN THE MINISTRY FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS AND EQUALITY The Ministry for European Affairs and Equality is accepting offers for the leasing of premises to house departments and entities within the Ministry for European Affairs and Equality. Offers are to be submitted in a tender box for the attention of the Permanent Secretary (Administration), Ministry for European Affairs and Equality, 31B, Tal-Pilar, Marsamxett Road, Valletta, VLT 1850 by not later than 9.30am of Thursday 11 th April 2019. Further details may be obtained from the Ministry's website: https://meae.gov.mt (under the section Tenders and Quotations) Lawyers for Pilatus banker call on court to dismiss Iran sanction charges Ali Sadr Hasheminejad

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