Posted on 04/14/2008 6:30:13 PM PDT by markomalley
CHICAGO (AP) -- A mysterious billionaire with his hands on a major chunk of Chicago real estate and at least passing familiarity with some of Illinois' top politicians has surfaced in the federal fraud trial of political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.
Nadhmi Auchi, the world's 279th richest person on the Forbes magazine list, is the founder and CEO of Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holdings. He presides over a business empire that stretches from the shores of the Red Sea through Russia, western Europe and North America.
The company boasts investments in banking and finance, hotels, aviation, pharmaceuticals and real estate -- including 62 acres near downtown Chicago in which Rezko once held a stake.
Few would have noticed Auchi had it not been for a $3.5 million wire transfer sent without any fanfare last year to Rezko's attorneys from an account in far-off Lebanon.
Rezko, who has helped bankroll campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and other Illinois politicians, was facing federal fraud charges at the time. He swore to the judge that he was broke and living off relatives.
Then investigators found the $3.5 million from Auchi.
"The bottom line is I think Mr. Rezko lied to me," U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve said after federal agents appeared at Rezko's North Shore home at first light Jan. 28 and took him into custody.
The Iraqi-born Auchi, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the Rezko case, has been sitting out the trial, now in its seventh week. In fact, when Auchi -- pronounced NAD'-mee OW'-chee -- tried to visit the United States in 2005 he was denied entry, prosecutors say.
The refusal apparently stems from Auchi's own fraud scandal, though Rezko himself tried to get his business partner into the country.
In 2003, Auchi received a suspended sentence and a hefty fine after being convicted of receiving $2 million in illegal commissions as part of France's giant Elf-Aquitaine oil scandal that sent top executives to jail. His attorney said Auchi denies any role in the scandal and he's appealing.
Two years later, after Auchi was unable to enter the United States, "Rezko directly appealed to the State Department and, it appears, asked certain Illinois government officials to do the same," prosecutors said in court papers seeking an arrest warrant for Rezko.
State Department public information officers said they had no information that any Illinois political figures had intervened on Auchi's behalf.
Auchi did visit the United States in 2004. Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn headed a welcoming delegation that greeted Auchi when his private plane touched down at Chicago's Midway Airport.
"We talked mainly about the late King Hussein of Jordan and Queen Noor," recalled Quinn, who rode downtown with Auchi and his family. He said he later attended a party for Auchi held at Rezko's home.
Auchi was the guest of honor at a lavish dinner party thrown by Rezko at the Four Seasons Hotel. Blagojevich was on hand for the festivities and posed for photos with the visiting tycoon.
"He has not met with or talked to Mr. Auchi since then," Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said.
Obama, whose presidential run has been bedeviled by his relationship with Rezko, has said he attended a Rezko party at the Four Seasons but doesn't remember meeting Auchi. It isn't clear it was the same party.
"Tony called and asked if I could stop by because he had a number of friends that he had invited to dinner and he wanted me to meet them," Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times last month. "I remember meeting a bunch of people who I had not met before. I frankly don't remember what their names were. Business was not discussed at the meeting."
For his part, Auchi doesn't remember meeting Obama, said the billionaire's attorney, Alasdair Pepper.
Stuart Levine, the government's star witness at Rezko's fraud trial, however, testified this week that he remembered seeing Obama and his wife at a party for Auchi at about the same time at Rezko's home.
A photo also has surfaced that shows Auchi posing with Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago.
"Who?" Jones said when asked if he remembered meeting Auchi. "I don't know who he is."
Jones' press secretary, Cindy Davidsmeyer, said the photo was taken in the lawmaker's Chicago office.
"It was strictly a grip and grin," she said. "He doesn't even remember it."
At one point, Rezko owed Auchi $27 million, court papers say, with at least some of the money involving the giant parcel of undeveloped downtown land.
The 62-acre tract starts a dozen blocks from the heart of the Chicago Loop and runs south between commuter rail tracks and a branch of the Chicago River. It was once a place where freight was transferred from trains to trucks, said Joseph Cacciatore, a Chicago lawyer and real estate man whose family once owned the property.
At the moment, the parcel is covered with weeds and junk. Developers say, however, that once the land is covered with townhouses, offices, stores and parking spaces it may be worth billions.
In 2005, published reports in Chicago said Auchi had purchased the entire property for $133 million. But it seems Rezko was able to hang onto at least some shares in the land through the Riverside Development Corp.
Court papers say that the $3.5 million wired to Rezko's lawyers by Auchi was a loan that was erased in exchange for shares in the 62-acre property. And they say Auchi had planned at the time to pay $4 million more for the rest of the tract.
That exchange has now apparently been made.
"All the loans and interest have now been paid by Mr. Rezko by means of the transfer of shares in the Riverside Development to my client," said Pepper, Auchi's attorney. "Mr. Rezko has no remaining shareholding in the development."
Still grumbling, however, is Cacciatore. He said he was a partner with Rezko in the property before Auchi showed up, and he has seen no money as a result of the sale. He has filed suit against his former partners, including Rezko.
Still, Cacciatore can't suppress at least a touch of admiration for the dapper, sophisticated Auchi. He said they met at an Obama fundraising party that Rezko gave at his home several years ago.
"He was well dressed," Cacciatore said. "He seemed distinguished."
The worms crawl out...
Kind of a zinger at the end:
Still, Cacciatore can’t suppress at least a touch of admiration for the dapper, sophisticated Auchi. He said they met at an Obama fundraising party that Rezko gave at his home several years ago.
“He was well dressed,” Cacciatore said. “He seemed distinguished.”
Sorry, I don’t know what happened to the paragraphs. It must have been that Arabic writing:
Nadhmi Auchi is a British billionaire businessman who was born in Iraq.
In the Sunday Times Rich List 2007 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK he was placed 18th with an estimated fortune of £1,995 million.[1]
Nadhmi Auchi was charged along with Saddam Hussein for conspiring to assassinate Iraqi President Abdul-Karim Qasim in 1959. Qasim was injured while his bodyguard was killed; Saddam managed to flee the country. Auchi was arrested for delivering weapons to the assassins but was later pardoned by President Qasim.
Nadhmi Auchi graduated in Economics and Political Science from the Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad in 1967. He also worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, becoming Director of Planning and Development. In 1979 he founded General Mediterranean Holding SA of Luxembourg. From 1996-2000 he served on an advisory committee to the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has been president of the Anglo-Arab Organisation since its founding in 2002.
In November, 2003, Auchi was given a two-year suspended prison sentence for his involvement in the Elf scandal. A French court found him guilty of accepting £50 million worth of illegal commissions. He was also fined £1.4 million.[2]
We're in a war and we're about to put our enemies in charge of our military.
$3.5 million from Auchi
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/who_is_nadhmi_auchi_and_whats.html
Mr. Auchi was a leading supplier of arms to Saddam’s regime. A former Belgian ambassador to Luxembourg charged that a bank in Luxembourg owned principally by Mr. Auchi laundered funds — including oil for food money — for Saddam and other Islamic dictators.
This stuff reads right out of a “James Bond” storyboard.
Auchi is a former member of Saddam’s Baathist party. In 1959, he was tried, along with Saddam Hussein, in an attempted assassination plot. He eventually fled Iraq and publicly distanced himself from Saddam after the dictator murdered his two brothers. Time magazine reported in 2003 that Auchi maintained deep connections to Iraq and built much of his fortune selling them armaments. He has been fingered as a key figure in the Oil-for-Food scandal, with accusations that he acted as one of Saddam’s brokers. He certainly is no stranger to shady deals: in 2003, Auchi was convicted in France of bribery charges, along with a raft of Elf oil executives, in a scandal dating back to 1990 involving the sale of a Spanish oil refinery.
Having rejected his white maternal parentage, he has truly taken refuge in the dark side of the force. A close examination of Obama's neocolonial political work in Kenya in August of 2006 also reveals this fact.
Talk of Obama's being president is enough to send chills of rebellion throughout the souls of American patriots.
I detest the man and his black nationalist, anti- white,racism, as well as his neocolonialist genocidal work in Kenya, against the Kikuyu tribe and the Christian majority there.
May Obama rot into oblivion, along with his mindless supporters.
It seems Mr. Auchi collects slimy libs on both sides of the Atlantic. from the blog, (bold is mine)
And Obama isn’t the only one who wished to downplay this relationship with Auchi. Raw Story reported that shortly after rumors began circulating that Obama met with Auchi, two websites connected to Auchi’s holding company, General Mediterranean Holding, were scrubbed of any mention of his trip to Illinois.
Obama himself has been extraordinarily vague about any possible meetings, saying that while he very well may have met Auchi, he doesn’t recall it.
Why is this so important? Establishing a previous relationship between Obama and Auchi opens a fresh line of questions about the real estate deal on his home involving Rezko and Obama ...
found this conection at the time it was posted.
What about this?
Lehman Brothers: Obama’s Rezko-Auchi conflict of interest
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5076
Wonder if this Auchi guy affected Bush’s Iraq policy and the financial October Surprise with the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros.
Oh boy, it seems there was a DU thread on this back in March. Some did not like it!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4871207
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