Edmond Safra death takes another twist

by **emad** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 12:37 pm

July 31, 2005 Sunday Times The plot to kill the banker Matthew Campbell, Paris THE circumstances surrounding the death of Edmond Safra, the billionaire banker who died in a fire in a Monaco penthouse five years ago, are to be re- examined in court when a male nurse found guilty of starting the blaze goes on trial for escaping from prison. According to his lawyer, Ted Maher, the American nurse who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2002, will reveal details of a conspiracy against Safra. The banker died after locking himself in a “panic room” where he choked on fumes from the blaze. “Ted is going to tell what really happened that night,” said Mike Griffith, an American lawyer famous for helping his fellow countrymen who get into trouble overseas. Maher will testify that masked intruders broke into Safra’s apartment, apparently determined to kill or kidnap the banker who had Parkinson’s disease and needed constant care. The intruders fled after Maher, 47, a former Green Beret commando, struggled with one of them and was injured. His account is certain to give a new lease of life to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Safra, who was one of the world’s richest men. He employed private bodyguards but they had been given the night off on the evening of the fire. Videotape from a closed-circuit camera in the apartment mysteriously went missing. Safra left most of his £3 billion fortune to his wife Lily, who later moved to London. The re-examination of the evidence coincides with efforts by a lawyer acting for her to force the withdrawal from sale of Empress Bianca, a novel by Lady Colin Campbell. The book, which the publishers say was a work of fiction, was regarded as a thinly veiled attack on her life which defamed her. Maher’s story is stranger than fiction. He confessed to stabbing himself in the leg and side so as to emerge as a hero and be rewarded for “rescuing” Safra. He said that he had lit paper in a rubbish bin to set off a smoke alarm and summon help but the fire blazed out of control and firemen took longer to arrive than he had expected. According to Griffith, however, Maher says his confession was extracted under pressure. He had told police about the intruders on the day of the fire but a lawyer advised him not to mention it again. “He was told that things would go really badly for him if he stuck to that story,” said Griffith. “Now he wants the truth to come out.” According to Griffith, Maher claims that he was abducted in Nice in December 1999, a few days before the blaze in the Monaco penthouse. He says that he was bundled into a van at gunpoint and told that “something is going to happen” in Safra’s flat and that he should not interfere. The men told him that the nurses’ rota had been changed so that he would be on duty on the night they were referring to. It was not clear why the men wanted Maher, who unlike Safra’s other nurses had been employed for only a short time. Maher says he told Safra to shut himself in his room after the intruders had fled. Safra told Maher to raise the alarm. Lighting a fire was the only way the nurse could think of doing that, he claims. As it raged, Lily telephoned her husband in his panic room, urging him to come out. Safra refused to do so, apparently convinced a hit squad was waiting to kill him. He succumbed to fumes along with Vivian Torrente, another nurse. Maher claims pressure was put on him to confess that he had made up the story about the intruders. At one point police waved his wife’s passport under his nose saying, “We’ve got your wife”, and urging him to sign a statement that he alone was responsible for the fire. The confession document was in French, a language Maher does not understand. He was imprisoned for unintentionally causing Safra’s death. He would have been eligible for release at the end of this year had it not been for his brief escape from prison with a fellow inmate in 2003, for which he faces a one-year sentence. His case will be heard within the next few weeks. “He feels he has been very badly treated,” said Griffith, whose best known client was William Hayes, the subject of the Hollywood film Midnight Express about an American imprisoned in Turkey. “He is going to air this evidence in public for the first time because he wants the world to know what happened.” <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1714899,00.html">www.timesonline.co.uk/new...99,00.html</a>

by **emad** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 1:20 pm

In 2001 it was reported in the UK press that Maher was being investigated by City of London cops regarding an allegation that a 'substantial five figure sum' had been offered to him via an anonymous payment to his wife's bank account (£50,000 was quoted) in return for 'co-operating with the investigating magistrates in Monaco' in the Edmond Safra death puzzle. A subsequent story in the French press circa August 2001 hinted that the chief fundraiser of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St George - Anthony Bailey - may have been that source of financial inducement. <a href="http://www.constantinian.org.uk/pictures/bios/abailey-big.jpg">www.constantinian.org.uk/...ey-big.jpg</a> ANTHONY BAILEY Bailey has been widely reported in the UK press to have shot to substantial personal wealth as a result of his work for this Vatican Order - widely dubbed in the late 1990s as the Sacred Constantinian Military Order of Papal Whores, Nazi Worshippers and Holocaust Deniers after allegations that Bailey was the natural son of convicted Holocaust denier David Irving. A feature in the London Evening Standard's ES magazine a few weeks ago stated that Bailey's personal wealth was derived from commissions received from the Order on new financial donations from wealthy foreign backers whom he had introduced to the Order, which had swelled its coffers to unprecedented levels. Among those in receipt of the Order's gongs are former Saudi ambassador to the US Prince Bandar and: "His Excellency Bashar al-Assad, GCFO, President of the Syrian Arab Republic,** His Royal Highness Prince Khalid Al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, Governor of Asir Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia** Mr Nadhmi Auchi, KSS, GCFO, President of the Anglo-Arab Organisation, His Excellency Abdul-Qadar Bajammal, GCFO, Prime Minister of the Republic of Yemen. His Excellency Ali Abdullah Saleh, GCFO, President of the Republic of Yemen Mr Farid Ahmed Warsi, Special Counsel to the King Faisal Foundation The Right Honourable Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, GCFO, FRS, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom His Excellency Mr Abu Baker Abdullah Al-Kirbi, KCFO, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Yemen. ** His Excellency Dr Mutahar Abdullah Alsaeede, KCFO, Ambassador of the Republic of Yemen to the Court of St James's and Ireland. Mr Mansour Azzam, KSS, KCFO, Deputy Chief of Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Syrian Arab Republic. ** His Excellency Mr Mohammed Belmahi, KCFO, Ambassador of His Majesty The King of Morocco to the Court of Saint James's, Professor Nasser David Khalili, KSS, KCFO, Chairman of the Maimonides Foundation, Mr Mahmoud Khayami, KSS, KCFO, Trustee of the Khayami Foundation, Member of the International Consultative Board of the Maimonides Foundation, The Right Honourable Lord Lamont of Lerwick, KCFO, former Chancellor of the Exchequer" Full List see: <a href="http://www.constantinian.org.uk/main.htm">www.constantinian.org.uk/main.htm</a>

by **emad** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 1:24 pm

Artful old crook Safra was involved for many years with mega-crook John Bond, HSBC CEO. Some background: <a href="http://www.dangoor.com/72page21.html">www.dangoor.com/72page21.html</a> Looking forward to Ted Maher spilling the beans in this latest twist in the Monaco High Court of Appeal. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=emad@rigorousintuition>emad</A> at: 7/31/05 11:47 am

Edmond Safra death takes another twist

Edmond Safra death takes another twist

Re: Edmond Safra death takes another twist

Safra and the HSBC connection:

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