U.S. IMPROPER LOBBYING CASE: I was unaware Fai was an undercover agent: Swamy!

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Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy on Thursday clarified that when he participated in a seminar in 2003 on Kashmir, organised by an organisation run by U.S.-based Kashmir activist Ghulam Nabi Fai, he was unaware that Dr. Fai was an “undercover agent of a foreign power.”

Dr. Fai has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for receiving millions of dollars in funds from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to influence politicians and opinion makers on Kashmir.

In a statement, Dr. Swamy said he delivered an address on Kashmir in the seminar held in the U.S. Senate Building in Washington in the summer of 2003. At that time, he was teaching economics at the Harvard University. He had checked with the Indian Embassy about the organisers and was told that ‘it was an anti-Indian gathering but not that it was ISI-inspired.”

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http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2282617.ece

PAK IMPROPER LOBBYING CASE: Pak military plotted to tilt US policy on Kashmir, says FBI!

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Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, Updated: July 20, 2011 17:12 IST.

Washington:  Pakistan's military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India's control of much of Kashmir - including funnelling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed on Tuesday.

The allegations of a long-running plan to influence American elections and foreign policy come at a time of deep tensions between the United States and Pakistan - and in particular its spy agency - amid the fallout over the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound deep inside Pakistan on May 2.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation made the allegations in a 43-page affidavit filed in connection with the indictment of two United States citizens on charges that they failed to register with the Justice Department as agents of Pakistan, as required by law. One of the men, Zaheer Ahmad, is in Pakistan, but the other, Syed Fai, lives in Virginia and was arrested on Tuesday.

Mr. Fai is the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a Washington-based group that lobbies for and holds conferences and media events to promote the cause of self-determination for Kashmir. According to the affidavit, the activities by the group, also called the Kashmiri Centre, are largely financed by Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, along with as much as $100,000 a year in related donations to political campaigns in the United States. Foreign governments are prohibited from making donations to American political candidates.

"Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose - to hide Pakistan's involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government's position on Kashmir," Neil MacBride, the United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, said. "His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funnelled millions through the Kashmir Centre to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington."

A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy denied any connection to matter, saying, "Mr. Fai is not a Pakistani citizen, and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case."

Law enforcement officials said Pakistan used a network of at least 10 unnamed straw contributors, which Mr. Ahmad helped organize, to make the campaign contributions and donate the bulk of the Kashmiri Centre's annual operating budget. The ISI would reimburse them - or their families in Pakistan - for the donations, the officials said.

Most of the straw donors who made contributions to the Kashmiri Centre and to politicians in the United States were identified only by code in the court document, though the investigation was continuing and eight F.B.I. field offices executed 17 or 18 search warrants related to other suspected donors on Tuesday, an official said.

The goal of the group, according to internal documents cited by the F.B.I., was to persuade the United States government that it was in its interest to push India to allow a vote in Kashmir to decide its future. The group's strategy was to offset the Indian lobby by targeting members of the Congressional committees that focus on foreign affairs with private briefings and events, staging activities that would draw media attention and otherwise to elevate the issue of Kashmir - the disputed region between India and Pakistan that each country controls in part but claims entirely - in Washington.

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http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/pak-military-plotted-to-tilt-us-policy-on-kashmir-says-fbi-120624

Pakistan funded Washington lobby group, Culprit is in Federal Custody - U.S. says!

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By the CNN Wire Staff / July 19, 2011 -- Updated 2341 GMT (0741 HKT).

Washington (CNN) -- Pakistani intelligence secretly funneled at least $4 million to a Washington front group whose leaders improperly lobbied U.S. officials over the disputed territory of Kashmir, federal agents alleged Tuesday.

A Pakistani-American man who served as director of the Kashmiri American Council is in federal custody, while a second man accused of steering money to the organization is believed to be in Pakistan, the Justice Department said. The KAC director, Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, "acted at the direction and with the financial support of the government of Pakistan for more than 20 years," an FBI arrest affidavit states.

One U.S. congressman quickly gave $4,000 donated by the two men charged in the case to charity, while another said he would consider a similar move if the source of the money was in question.

Fai and his co-defendant, Zaheer Ahmad, have been charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires lobbyists acting on behalf of another nation to register with the U.S. government. The charge carries a possible prison term of up to five years.

Short, balding and bespectacled, Fai made a brief initial appearance in federal court in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, Tuesday afternoon. He wore a short-sleeved, checked shirt and dark slacks at the hearing, during which no plea was entered.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/19/pakistan.lobbying/index.html?hpt=hp_t2