| In
which The Sunday Times catches up, some days late,
with the Internet...  His
past links to an Al-Qaeda terrorist have raised
questions in some quarters as to whether he might
even have been working for the intelligence
services.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Beheading of
Berg - now it's a conspiracy by Tony Allen-Mills and Nick
Fielding FOR most people the videotaped
execution of Nicholas Berg was a graphic
reminder of the risks involved in waging war on a
violent terrorist enemy. For others, however, it
was evidence of a conspiracy. Take, for example, the suspiciously white ear
that appears shortly after frame 9,306 of the
beheading video. It appears
to belong to a captor wearing an American
cap. Quite why an Islamic terrorist would be wearing
an emblem of the enemy has yet to be explained.
This is one of at least 50 anomalies
now being pored over by video experts, computer
analysts and internet surfers.  The
arrest last week of four Iraqis suspected of
involvement in the revenge killing of the
26-year-old civilian adventurer has added to the
confusion, fuelling doubts about official accounts
of Berg's visit to Iraq.
Moreover, it has refocused attention on the
bizarre sequence of coincidences and contradictions
that led to his death. His past links to an
Al-Qaeda terrorist have raised questions in some
quarters as to whether he might even have been
working for the intelligence services. Wandering across Iraq in search of business for
Prometheus Methods, his fledgling
Pennsylvania-based communications company, Berg
would introduce himself in halting Arabic as "the
tower guy". He specialised in climbing radio and
mobile phone installations to inspect, repair and
upgrade them. There was nothing in the young American's
e-mails home to indicate any sinister connections.
He even laughed off a 13-day spell in jail after
Iraqi guards spotted an Israeli stamp in his
passport - a serious faux pas in the Arab
world. Six weeks ago he checked out of his Baghdad
hotel and told the receptionist: "Inshallah (God
willing) I will be back in a few days." His body
was found on May 8
[2004] on a
Baghdad motorway overpass, but it was not until
three days later that his family learnt how he
died. The video posted on the Muntada al-Ansar site
claimed that Berg had been killed in revenge for
the US abuse of prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib
jail. The CIA later announced that it believed the
man who read a statement and then wielded the knife
was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian
Islamic militant with ties to Osama Bin
Laden.  As
America recoiled in horror at descriptions of the
blood-curdling murder, Berg's family disclosed a
curious connection. Five years earlier, Berg had
attended the University of Oklahoma. At a nearby
flight school at the same time, an Islamic militant
named Zacarias Moussaoui (right) was
taking pilot lessons. Moussaoui, a French Moroccan,
is awaiting trial on charges that he would have
been one of the September 11 hijackers had he not
been arrested beforehand.
When the FBI began examining Moussaoui's local
links it made an extraordinary discovery. He had
been using Berg's university e-mail password. Michael Berg, Nicholas's father, has said
his son innocently gave his password to a man he
met on a bus. The man is believed to have been
Hussein al-Attas, a student at an Oklahoma
community college who had become friendly with
Moussaoui and who asked if he could borrow Berg's
laptop computer to send an e-mail home. Al-Attas is
now in US detention. When Berg was arrested at a roadblock in Mosul,
northern Iraq, last March, his Moussaoui connection
provoked further scrutiny of the password incident.
He was interrogated three times by FBI agents in
Mosul. Eventually he was released, and a Justice
Department official insisted last week that however
unsettling it seemed that a civilian randomly
executed by Al-Qaeda should himself have been
investigated for Al-Qaeda links, officials had no
doubt it was "a total coincidence". The plot seemed to thicken when Michael Berg's
grief at his son's murder turned to rage against
the US administration. Berg claimed that his son's
detention in Mosul had been unlawful, and had
"immersed my son in a world of escalated violence .
. . were it not for his detention (I) would have
had him in my arms again". This improbable sequence of events provoked
intensive scrutiny of both the US government's
treatment of Berg and the video that shows his
death. While some of the anomalies appear easily
explained by the obvious editing of the tape,
others have excited intense debate. The CIA's insistence that al-Zarqawi was
responsible appears based on the scantiest of
evidence. Al-Zarqawi is known to have lost one leg,
yet there is no sign on the video of either a
prosthesis or any awkward movement. Sound experts
have speculated that the voice might have been
dubbed on. - Other questions have been raised about the
orange jumpsuit worn by Berg, which appears
similar to those worn by prisoners at
Guantánamo Bay.
- He is sitting on a white chair, similar to
one shown in an image from Abu Ghraib
prison.
- There are discrepancies in the times on the
video frames.
No credible motive has yet been advanced for the
suggestion among conspiracy theorists that US
forces might have faked a video to cover up Berg's
death. More problematic is the government's claim
that al-Zarqawi was responsible. Two of the four Iraqis arrested in connection
with Berg's murder have already been released. The
others are believed to be former members of Saddam
Hussein's Fedayeen militia, and might have been
loyal to Yasser al-Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam who
continues to fight coalition forces. Copyright 2004 Times
Newspapers Ltd.
Report: Berg was
Arrested Twice at Oklahoma University in Spring
2000 -
details
about the 9/11 hijacker's airline ticket
purchase from the OU library
-
Nick Berg's father: George
Bush never looked into my son's eyes
 -
At least: Fifteen
Anomalies Surrounding Death Of Nick
Berg
-
website
of Michael P. Wright
-
US businessman Nick
Berg executed on camera | Mr Irving's
commentary
-
Expanding the Taguba report: Israel's
role in training US army in torture
techniques
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