Say WHAT? Venice Florida flight school linked to CIA : Indybay

Venice, Florida, flight school linked to CIA
 
Firm has 'green light' from local DEA

 
By Daniel Hopsicker
 
The MadCow Morning News Publisher and Online Journal Contributing Writer

 
March 2, 2002-New evidence linking the owner of the Venice, Florida, flight
school that trained Mohamed Atta to the Central Intelligence Agency surfaced
last month.

 

The new evidence adds to existing indications that Mohamed Atta and his
terrorist cadre's flight training in this country was part of a so-far
unacknowledged U.S. government intelligence operation which had ultimately
tragic consequences for thousands of civilians on September 11.

 

Far from merely being negligent or asleep at the switch-the thrust so far of
allegations expected to be aired at joint Senate and House Select Committee
hearings this month-the accumulating evidence suggests the CIA was not just
aware of the thousands of Arab student pilots who began pouring into this
country several years ago to attend flight training, but was running the
operation for still-unexplained reasons.

 

During a controversy over the awarding of a bid for an aviation maintenance
facility in Lynchburg, Virginia, what had begun as a purely local spat took
on national importance when it unearthed connections between Rudi
Dekkers-the Dutch national whose Huffman Aviation trained both of the pilots
at the controls of the airliners which crashed into the World Trade
Center-and the CIA.

 

Good-by, Magic Dutch Boy; Hello, Jerry Falwell

 
The CIA's links to Dekkers surfaced when an unknown company called Britannia
Aviation was mysteriously awarded a five-year contract to run a large
regional maintenance facility at the Lynchburg, Virginia, Regional Airport.
 

At the time of the award virtually nothing was known about Britannia except
that the company worked out of a hangar at Rudi Dekker's Huffman Aviation at
the Venice, Florida, airport.
 

But when Britannia was chosen over a respected and successful Lynchburg
company boasting a multi-million dollar balance sheet and more than 40
employees, aviation executives there began voicing concerns to reporters at
the local newspaper . . .

 

"There was some sentiment that there might be something suspicious about
Britannia Aviation," stated business reporter Chris Flores of the Lynchburg
News-Advance. "There was a clear feeling that nobody knew who these guys
were, or where they were coming from."

 

The suspicion deepened when it was discovered that Britannia Aviation is a
company with virtually no assets, employees, or corporate history. Moreover,
the company did not even possess the necessary FAA license to perform the
aircraft maintenance services for which it had just been contracted by the
city of Lynchburg.
 

At a Lynchburg City Council hearing on the dispute, there were vocal
objections from observers baffled as to why a company with virtually no
qualifications was being awarded a contract to take over a large regional
maintenance facility designed for major carriers like Delta and USAir
Express.

 

"It was as if someone with a learner's permit from the DMV got picked to
drive Richard Petty's car at Daytona," explained one local aviation
executive and NASCAR fan.

 

"It made absolutely no business sense that anyone could see."

 

Be True to Your School
 

When Britannia Aviation's financial statements were released after prodding
by the local aviation community, they revealed Britannia to be a "company"
worth less than $750.
 

Paul Marten, a British aircraft mechanic who was the Britannia executive in
attendance, rose to say it wasn't true. Britannia's assets, he was sure,
amounted to more than $750, though how much more was a question he left
unanswered.
 

A Lynchburg city official attempted to wave aside objections that Britannia
was insolvent with a joke. "At least they have more on their balance sheet
than Enron," said Lynchburg City Councilman Robert Garber.
 

Trying to save further embarrassment, Britannia executive Marten reassured
those in attendance that at Huffman's hangar at the Venice airport they had
for some time been successfully providing aviation maintenance services for
Caribe Air, a Caribbean carrier.
 

And that is how the world learned that under Rudi Dekkers' FAA license Paul
Marten's little dummy front company worked for a notorious CIA proprietary
air carrier which, even by the standards of a CIA proprietary, has had a
particularly checkered past.
 

Caribe Air's history includes "blemishes" like having its aircraft seized by
federal officials at the infamous Mena, Arkansas, airport a decade ago,
after the company was accused by government prosecutors of having used as
many as 20 planes to ship drugs worth billions of dollars into this country.

 

What a Coincidence, Eh?

 

Ironically, the company also made headlines a dozen years ago in a scandal
in which one of the principals, Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi, was reportedly
killed just this past weekend.
 

A Caribe Air C130 had been shot down over Angola with the loss of everyone
aboard, including a US congressman's nephew. The plane was on a mission for
the Angolan government, it was discovered, laden with a cargo of whiskey and
cigarettes.

 

Observers at the time had noted wryly that, while the CIA had for years been
covertly supporting the other side in the Angolan conflict, Jonas Savimbi's
UNITA rebels, it now appeared to be playing both ends against the middle.
 

At least when it came to planeloads of swag.

 

Though the congressman with a dead nephew was not amused, the matter was
quickly dropped.

 

Curiously enough, Caribe Air is today controlled by an offshore bank located
on the Caribbean island of Dominica, Banc Caribe, a private bank that may be
being investigated currently by authorities pursuing the names involved in
Enron's secret offshore partnerships, many of which have the name "Caribe"
in their title.
 

When four offshore bankers were arrested by United States law enforcement
agencies in November and charged with money laundering, Banc Caribe Ltd., of
Dominica was named in one of the affidavits filed.

 

This is no doubt merely the sheerest of coincidences.
 

When details of the Lynchburg controversy first reached Venice aviation
executives they professed amazement. "No one here had ever heard of
Britannia Aviation before," one told us. "And this is a very small airport."
 

After our inquiry he called a DEA source of his at the airport, this
aviation executive told us, to ask what he knew about Britannia Aviation.
 

"This guy got all excited as soon as I asked," this executive stated. "He
immediately wanted to know why I was so interested in Britannia. Finally he
reluctantly told me that Britannia had a 'green light' from the DEA at the
Venice airport, whatever that means. He also said the local Venice Police
Department (which has mounted round-the-clock patrols at the airport since
Sept.11) had been warned to leave them alone."
 

Paul Martens had no comment on the report when we dropped in on him at his
office in a Huffman Aviation hangar at the Venice airport. He was just an
honest British businessman, he told us. He had ties to Lynchburg, Virginia.
He had met his wife there, while she was a student at Jerry Falwell's
Liberty University.
 

Her father was a pastor for the Reverend Falwell.

 

"Jerry Falwell got bailed out in the early '90s by a Lynchburg businessman
whose son is married to Billy Graham's daughter," a Lynchburg observer told
us. "Since then he runs a missionary service called World Help, which flies
all over the world."
 

Many of the flight trainers who had trained the Arab terrorist pilots had
also flown missions out of the Venice and Sarasota Florida airports for such
Christian missionary services as televangelist Pat Robertson's Operation
Blessing.
 

It was "Islamic fundamentalist" Osama bin laden who cloaked his covert
activities under the cover of religious charities. Were we now discovering
that our own government intelligence agencies used the same ruse?

 

What was going on here?
 

Christian-linked or not, why did a transparent dummy front company like Paul
Marten's Britannia Aviation have a "green light" from the DEA?

 

A green light for what?

Say WHAT? Venice Florida flight school linked to CIA

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