Nbc #4 - On Armenians

[MosJan]

wa any of you watching NBC #4 evnning ???

[ED]

yes i was Mosjan, the dateline nbc, I'm tying to get the transcript for the program

 

I'm still angry from watching it

[armjan]

yes i was Mosjan, the dateline nbc, I'm tying to get the transcript for the program

 

I'm still angry from watching it

style_images/master/snapback.png

why, what happened?

[MosJan]

Ed jan let me kwno if you can get hold of the video

i was out fishing wan it was on TV

[kakachik77]

what was this about?

[MosJan]

ARmenian in 1975 and up ASALA & Orly

[gamavor]

I haven't watch it but don't find it strange. It coinsides with the visit of the Turkish PM in Washigton, so Americans felt obliged to do some lip service to the Turk. There WAS Armenian terror. There is American terror (McVaugh, or whatever the moron's name was that blew up the building in Oklahoma), there is/was International terror, French, Greek, Spanish, Yougoslav, British, Arab, you name it.

 

But there is also another type of terror. State sponsored terror. Much more dangerous and difficult to fight with because it keeps the motives hidden. The state sponsored 'Grey wolves' of Turkey, CIA of USA, former KGB of the Soviet Union and at present their "business ventures".

 

I wish I would live long enough to see a documentary on the Turkish invasion in Cyprus on the American TV, or a documentary of the recruit services of CIA that sent islamic fundamentalists to fight agaisnt Armenians in Karabagh. I would love to see a documentary on the training and the monetary support lend by CIA to Afgani mudjahedins during the war with the Soviets.

 

There are so-many documentaries that I would LOVE to see...

[MosJan]

"I wish I would live long enough to see a documentary"

 

hmm Gamavor jan thats all ??? it's only 50 to 75 years bro

so in 75 years you will not be posting in HyeForum ???

no good bro no good

[phantom22]

If you study activities of the Jewish underground in Palestine before Israel was founded, you will find terrorist activities also. If the Turks acted honorably these actions would never had occurred.

 

The ball is in Turkey's court. They have the power to solve ALL their problems. A nation which becomes a primarily Muslim state by annihilating its Armenian, Greek and Assyrian subjects has not the right years later claim that they are being discriminated against because they are a Muslim state.

Edited June 14, 2005 by phantom22

[gamavor]

"I wish I would live long enough to see a documentary"

 

hmm  Gamavor jan thats  all ??? it's  only 50 to 75 years  bro 

so in 75 years  you will not be  posting  in HyeForum ???

no good  bro  no good

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

I'm going to plant MY Oak tomorrow.

[MosJan]

good atlist we will have some good wood for the BBQ in 50+ years

[kakachik77]

NBC News Transcripts

SHOW: Dateline NBC 7:00 AM EST NBC

June 12, 2005 Sunday

 

Time Bomb; Investigation into storage locker full of explosives in

Bedford, Ohio

 

reporters: JOHN HOCKENBERRY

 

 

TIME BOMB

 

Announcer: And now with Time Bomb, here again is Stone Phillips.

 

STONE PHILLIPS: When you think of likely terrorist targets in the

United States, you think of places where it's happened before: New

York, Washington, or other big cities like Chicago or Los Angeles.

But a small town in Ohio? That's where, long before 9/11, authorities

found a huge cache of explosives and weapons. The accidental

discovery in a self-storage facility left federal agents scratching

their heads. Whose weapons were they, and how exactly were they going

to be used? It's a mystery that took years of tireless investigation

to solve. Here's John Hockenberry.

 

JOHN HOCKENBERRY reporting: (Voiceover) Bedford, Ohio, is on the road

to nowhere, a little town where the freight train stops only once a

day. Few would call this place a destination. Not so long ago you

would have gotten laughs if you suggested this bedroom community had

any connection to a global terrorist network. All the people who live

in Bedford, Ohio, could have fit into the World Trade Center with

room to spare. But long before the attack on the twin towers,

investigators believe this town had its own very real brush with

terrorism. It also happened on a September morning, back in 1996.

 

(Aerial view of Bedford, Ohio; Bedford sign; train; scenes around

Bedford; aerial view of Bedford; scenes around Bedford)

 

Mr. PETE ELLIOT: September the 13th is Friday the 13th, and I was

waiting for the black cat to jump out from around the corner.

 

HOCKENBERRY: You're superstitious?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Not very, but a little.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Pete Elliot is a special agent for the

Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the ATF. Based in

nearby Cleveland, he works mostly violent crime cases involving

firearms and explosives. But he was about to embark on a case like

none he had ever seen.

 

(ATF jacket; Pete Elliot at computer; Elliot handling gun)

 

HOCKENBERRY: What began as a routine case would take four years to

solve. In the end it would bring renewed attention to a shadowy world

where terrorists out for revenge used bombs and assassinations for a

cause they believed was just. And it would lead to suspicions that a

prominent member of a Northern Ohio community--a man with influence

and friendships at the highest levels of the US government--was

somehow connected.

 

(Voiceover) A man who thought his secrets were safely locked away,

even from a dogged federal agent by the name of Pete Elliot.

 

(Photo of Mourad Topalian; photo of Elliot)

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) It started with a seemingly ordinary phone

call just after 10 in the morning from the Bedford Police. At the

time, Pete Elliot didn't think it would be a big deal.

 

(Aerial view of Bedford; clock)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Typically, or weekly, as ATF agents we deal with firearms

and explosives.

 

Unidentified Woman #1: (Answering phone) Bedford Police.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The Bedford Police told Elliot they had just

gotten an urgent call from a local business. For veteran detective

Tim Oleksiak it was anything but routine.

 

(Dispatcher; Tim Oleksiak at driving range)

 

HOCKENBERRY: I suppose you get a lot of calls as a local cop, and

some of them are bigger deals than what it sounds like on the call,

and some are smaller deals than what it sounds like on the call.

 

Mr. TIM OLEKSIAK: That's right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Where does this one fit?

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: This was in the top 10.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The police had been alerted by the manager

of a self-service storage facility on the edge of town. Someone who

had rented one of the units had stopped making payments. After

waiting six months, the manager got annoyed, cut the lock off and

opened the door. Then she called police.

 

(Storage facility; lock; open storage unit door)

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: It was a real sense of urgency, a real sense of

urgency. We didn't know exactly what we had until we got there. I was

one of the first officers on the scene.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Pete Elliot arrived just behind Oleksiak.

Inside the locker, they found boxes containing an estimated 100

pounds of explosives and blasting caps, and more than a dozen

weapons, including an Uzi submachine gun, an unusual shotgun with a

double trigger, and a rifle with an odd design on it. They also found

a bank deposit envelope and an old trench coat. Those items would get

a lot of interest later. But it was the dynamite that got everyone's

attention that morning.

 

(Agents and police at storage unit; explosives; photos of items in

storage facility; explosives; agents and police at storage unit)

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) What state were they in?

 

(Explosives at storage unit)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: A bad state, deteriorating, leaking, crystallizing. On

the boxes we could tell that they were manufactured in 1976, so we

knew we had old dynamite.

 

HOCKENBERRY: So essentially what you're telling me is that storage

unit, all by itself, was a bomb.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Absolutely.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) A bomb whose potential destructive power

became apparent immediately. The storage locker was just over the

fence from a gas station, and right next to an interstate. Across the

street was a daycare center, and just down the block was a school.

 

(Explosive materials; aerial view of storage facility; interstate

with storage units in background; playground with storage units in

back ground; school)

 

HOCKENBERRY: Is it illegal to have explosives in a storage unit?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Yes, definitely. And in this case, 20-year-old explosives

next to a gas station and a daycare center, a school--definitely

illegal.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Ironically, on the boxes of blasting caps

was a less-than-subtle reminder that explosives and children don't

mix. Bob Reid was the Bedford police chief in charge of the scene

that morning.

 

(Text on explosives box; crime scene)

 

HOCKENBERRY: How many people do you think were threatened on that

day?

 

Mr. BOB REID: Well, you have a student population of about 300 at the

elementary school.

 

(Voiceover) And at the daycare I believe there were 75 to 100 kids

there. The interstate highway, which is close, they have thousands a

day that go by there.

 

(School sign; child care sign; highway by storage facility)

 

Mr. REID: So that particular day it would have to be at least 750

people that had the possibility of an explosion and the tragedy.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Everyone's nerves were on edge, no one who

responded to the call had seen anything like it. Tim Oleksiak became

even more concerned after he talked to the bomb squad technician on

the scene.

 

(Police at storage unit; explosives at storage unit)

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: I've never had that situation before where a bomb tech

would actually say, `I only want myself and one other bomb person

here. I want everybody else out of here.' It's never happened before.

So we knew it was a very volatile situation at that point.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Dynamite gets more unstable over time. ATF

Experts would later say that the explosives were so volatile, a bug

crawling across this dynamite might have been enough to set it all

off.

 

(Explosives at storage unit)

 

Unidentified Man #1: (From videotape) It leaked all over. They've

got...

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The ATF and a local bomb squad knew they had

to get rid of the dynamite and fast. The highway was closed. The

children evacuated. Then the explosives were removed from their boxes

and taken out of town. Bob Reid was there when they were detonated.

 

(Man in protective suit at storage site; man directing traffic; child

care center; emergency vehicle)

 

Mr. REID: It was huge. This mushroom cloud had to go 75, 100 feet in

the air. And, I mean, it just mushroomed and the ground shook.

 

HOCKENBERRY: You felt this one in your bones.

 

Mr. REID: Oh, absolutely.

 

HOCKENBERRY: It was the sound of dodging a bullet?

 

Mr. REID: Yeah.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Bedford, Ohio, was out of danger, but

somehow its home-spun tranquility had attracted someone with 100

pounds of explosives and a small arsenal. Who and what had been

hiding out in Bedford?

 

(Bedford sign; weapons; box of explosives)

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: We were totally clueless the first day, literally. We

didn't know what we had to go on.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: My initial thoughts that day is it had to be somebody

back in the early 1980s, more than likely it was mob-related.

Somebody that is in jail now, going to get out and going to save this

stuff for a rainy day. Why else would you keep it around for that

many years?

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The lease records for the locker didn't seem

to be of much help. All of the names on the lease were fake. At one

point the renter had listed an address, but it was for this

convenience store in a nearby suburb. Elliot couldn't find a

connection. So he zeroed in on the unusual way the rent had always

been paid.

 

(Empty storage unit; door of storage unit being closed; convenience

store; storage facility)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Always in cash, never in check, or never leaving a trail

behind.

 

HOCKENBERRY: But...

 

Mr. ELLIOT: So they...

 

HOCKENBERRY: ...there was an actual person with that money coming to

that storage unit...

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Absolutely.

 

HOCKENBERRY: ...every month, or periodically to make those payments.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right, right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Regular cash payments made in person meant

there might be a witness. Elliot discovered that indeed a manager at

the storage facility was able to give ATF agents a description of the

woman who had come in monthly to pay the rent in cash. Elliot thought

he had his first break in the case.

 

(Elliot at computer; storage facility)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: The manager said that this female would be in her 50s

now, was small, about 5'2", petite, dark-complected, dark hair, dark

eyes. So we had a sketch, we had a composite of a female that

paying--making payments between 1983 and 1989.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) You looked at the sketch.

 

(Composite sketch)

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Did you think that it had any--and value in terms of

solving this crime?

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: At the beginning, no.

 

HOCKENBERRY: No.

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: It looked like a 35, 40-year-old female, it was a

pretty typical composite.

 

HOCKENBERRY: About 1 in a billion.

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: Exactly.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) So it wasn't surprising that when the ATF

released the composite to the local media, no one called saying they

recognized her. It looked like this lead was another dead end. But

Pete Elliot would not give up.

 

(Newspaper article)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I've always been under the belief, and I learned a long

time ago that everything in life can be traced. And even when you

think nobody's looking at you, somebody's watching you, and that you

always leave behind clues, no matter what.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Always.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Always.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Being a cop is in Pete Elliot's bones. His

great-grandfather was a police chief. His father was a deputy

sheriff, and later a US Marshal. Even after Pete, himself, joined the

US Marshal service, he had his sights set on joining the ATF.

 

(Photos of men; photo of Pete Elliot and father)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: It was my first choice, you know? And I take pride in

being an ATF agent. I take pride in working violent crime. I think we

have one of the toughest jobs in the country in law enforcement.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) He is a dedicated and deeply religious man

who relies on his faith when the going gets tough.

 

(Elliot praying)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: (Voiceover) You know, I believe everything happens for a

reason and a purpose.

 

(Elliot praying)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: And I believe there was a reason that I was supposed to

be there that day.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) And discovering that reason became Pete

Elliot's mission as a detective. Faith, some good police work and

maybe some lucky breaks, Elliot believed, would crack the case. So

when the police drawing failed to turn up any suspects, Elliot tried

to run a trace on the 13 weapons which had been in the locker with

the dynamite. The trouble was most were so old they were

untraceable--all except for the Winchester-type rifle with that

unique carving on the stock.

 

(Elliot working at desk; composite sketch; weapons; rifle; carving)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: And that traced back to a female that was no longer

residing in the Cleveland area.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The woman who bought the rifle was now

living in rural West Virginia. So with his composite in hand, Elliot

set off to find her. Driving through the hills and valleys of

Appalachia, he spent hours looking for the right house, daring to

think he was about to arrest the woman who had rented the locker.

 

(Mountains; Elliot driving; cars on road; empty road)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: And I'm thinking, `Wow, this is a quick case, it's over.

We've got her.'

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) But the woman who answered the door, not

only didn't match the composite, she also didn't know anything about

a storage locker or about the dynamite inside.

 

(Houses; storage facility)

 

HOCKENBERRY: So I'm figuring at that point you're going, `Well, this

might have been a lot of wasted gas spent going to West Virginia.'

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: And so...

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Until we sat down and talked with her.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The woman did know something about the rifle

with the unusual carving on the stock. She said her son had sold the

gun to her old boss, a man whom she knew by the nickname "Moose."

Moose owned a convenience store near Cleveland, the one with the same

address that had been listed on the storage locker rental agreement.

 

(Carving; rifle; convenience store)

 

HOCKENBERRY: All of a sudden out here in the middle West Virginia,

there is the address again.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Now, I'm betting, the hairs on the back of your neck are

starting to stand up.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Absolutely.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Really?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Yeah. Knew I was on to something then.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) As soon as he got back to Cleveland, Elliot

ran a check on the store's owner, whose last name was Topalian. And a

search of Ohio driver's license records turned up a woman named Lucy

Topalian, whose description sounded very familiar.

 

(Elliot at computer; composite sketch)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: (Voiceover) Five-foot-two, slender build, dark hair, dark

eyes. Age: in her 50s now.

 

(Composite sketch)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: All of that matched up to Lucy Topalian.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) To be sure he was on the right track, he

compared the handwriting on the storage locker lease with the

signature on Lucy Topalian's apartment lease, and experts said it was

a match, the same person had signed both documents.

 

(Documents)

 

HOCKENBERRY: So within a month and two days after you open the

storage unit, you know who the woman is.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Absolutely.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Now how are you feeling in your gut?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: We knew. We knew we had her then. But why? Why would a

female have 200 pounds of explosives, 13 firearms, a trench coat, all

of this stuff? Why? So we had to find out.

 

Announcer: A crucial clue, a tense moment.

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: (Voiceover) We knock on the door, and it was pretty

astonishing that after all that time she still looked very similar to

that composite.

 

(Composite sketch; photo of Lucy Topalian)

 

Announcer: When Time Bomb continues.

 

(Announcements)

 

Announcer: We now continue with Time Bomb.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) By October 1996, just a month after a deadly

mystery nearly exploded in the town of Bedford, Ohio, Pete Elliot

thought he'd solved it. He had developed important clues about one of

the rifles that had been confiscated. And armed with a composite, he

and Detective Tim Oleksiak went to the suburban Cleveland department

of Lucy Topalian, the woman they believed had rented the storage

locker. It was a tense moment.

 

(Explosives in storage unit; rifle; composite sketch; apartment

building)

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: We knocked on the door, a female answers.

 

(Voiceover) And it was pretty astonishing that after all of that time

she still looked very similar to that composite. And that was a huge

break.

 

(Composite sketch; photo of Lucy)

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: And you want to--you want to jump out of your skin at

that time, but you can't.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Once again, just like when you went to the door in West

Virginia, you were praying as an investigator that we are going to

see a short, kind of salt and pepper haired, in her 50s...

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: ...Mediterranean-looking lady, right?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Did we find her?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: We found her.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) More surprising than what she looked like is

what she had to say. Lucy was once married to Mourad Topalian, the

owner of the convenience store, whose nickname she said was Moose.

Her former husband had asked her to secretly rent the locker. And she

insisted she never knew what was inside. She had used fake names to

cover herself, but Pete Elliot was still skeptical. Lucy lied when

she rented the locker, how could he be sure she wasn't lying now?

 

(Photo of Lucy; photo of Mourad Topalian; storage unit; photo of

Lucy)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I wanted to corroborate what Lucy Topalian was saying,

and we had her place a phone call to her ex-husband, who was now

residing in Miami.

 

Unidentified Woman #2: (From audiotape of phone conversation) Hello.

 

Ms. LUCY TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) Is Mourad

there?

 

Woman #2: (From audiotape of phone conversation) Yeah, hold on. I'll

get him for you.

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) OK, thank you.

 

HOCKENBERRY: How did you convince her to do something like that?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: She was scared to death at that time. Agreed to

cooperate. Especially when we told her that the storage unit where it

was, across from a daycare center, she couldn't believe it.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The two investigators listened in on the

conversation as Lucy talked to an abruptly uneasy Mourad.

 

(Apartment building)

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) Yeah, listen,

the police were here earlier today. Like, they were asking me

questions about that storage locker in Bedford. Why didn't you tell

me what stuff was in there?

 

Mr. MOURAD TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) Oh, Lucy.

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) What? I'm scared

to death.

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) Oh, man.

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) There was enough

explosives in that room to blow up the whole fricken block. Jesus,

Mourad. I mean, this is insane. You had five kids...

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From audiotape of phone conversation) Lucy, please,

please, please, please I'll fla--fly back up there and I'll talk to

you. But not over the phone, please. For your sake, for my sake and

for the kids' sake.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: His willingness to take a flight back up to Cleveland as

soon as he could to talk to her in person, to me that sends all the

keys in the world that something's wrong here.

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: We were both thinking the same thing. He knows what's

going on and there is a lot more to this story, and we're going to

find out what it is.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Topalian flew to Cleveland the very next

day. And realizing that she herself might be facing charges, Lucy

agreed to wear a wire to a breakfast meeting with her former husband.

 

(Airplane in sky; Lucy and Mourad talking)

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Because I'm the one

that's going to get screwed.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The two investigators hoped to hear Topalian

tell all as they listened from the parking lot of this restaurant

outside Cleveland.

 

(Lucy and Mourad talking; Bob Evans restaurant)

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) I didn't know what was

in there.

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Oh, you didn't know what

was in...

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) I didn't know what was

in there.

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Who put it in there? You

have to know that.

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Yeah, yeah. Somebody

went and asked me to rent that. Some of the guys from overseas. And

they said, `Just forget about it.'

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) You didn't know there

were guns--guns and ammunition?

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) I didn't know any of

that.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Everything he said was suspicious, but more

than that, it was cautious. Pete Elliot could hear that Topalian was

saying nothing incriminating. There was no federal case to be made

yet.

 

(Lucy and Mourad meeting at restaurant)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: We didn't have any concrete evidence that he was the one

responsible for the inside contents of that storage unit. So we had a

big hurdle to go over.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) As the conversation inside the restaurant

went on, the two investigators heard tantalizing hints that this

Mourad Topalian had a mysterious sideline and previous brushes with

the feds.

 

(Lucy and Mourad meeting at restaurant)

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Remember those two FBI

guys that came many, many years?

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Oh, listen. I had FBI

guys so many different times that come in and talk to me.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Elliot was flabbergasted. Why would the FBI

have been so interested in this convenience store owner? And as he

talked, Topalian himself seemed to be acting like he was some kind of

target.

 

(Bob Evans restaurant; Lucy and Mourad meeting in restaurant)

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) They're going to go

after you. They're using you to get me.

 

Ms. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Why would they want to

get to you?

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) Because I'm the head of

the Armenian National Committee.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The Armenian National Committee, the two

listening investigators drew a blank.

 

(Mourad and Lucy meeting in restaurant)

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: I had no idea where Armenia was, to be honest. I didn't

know anything about Armenia at that point.

 

HOCKENBERRY: You know where it is now.

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: Oh, yeah.

 

HOCKENBERRY: The investigators were now entering uncharted waters.

The door to that storage locker full of explosives had suddenly

opened onto a world of twisted global politics. The two investigators

would soon get a crash course in geography and history to learn of a

century-old hatred with roots half a world away.

 

(Voiceover) Armenia is a small country, once part of the Soviet

Union, which sits between the Caspian and Black Seas. But the

Armenian people have historically laid claim to a much larger area,

including part of present-day Turkey.

 

The dispute between the Armenians and Turks erupted into one of the

bloodiest ethnic conflicts of the 20th century. The Armenians accused

the Turks of murdering up to 1 1/2 million Armenians between 1915 and

1923. It was an ethnic cleansing operation that many historians

believe was the worst case of genocide before the Holocaust. The

Turks dispute the number of people killed, and they reject

accusations of genocide. The killings and the history remain largely

unknown to a global audience, but it is the defining historical event

for one million Americans of Armenian descent. People like Mourad

Topalian, who's family lived in Armenia at the time of the killings.

His grandparents were tortured and hanged by the Turks.

 

(Map; photos of soldiers; drawing; news article; photos of killings;

news article; photos of dead people; people marching; Mourad

addressing group)

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (Giving speech) I miss my grandparents. I miss my

uncles. I miss my aunts.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The investigators learned that Topalian had

traveled the country, repeating the story about his ancestors,

raising millions of dollars to promote awareness of Armenia and its

people's plight. He also took his case to Washington, lobbying

Congress and top officials throughout the government. He was very

successful, not only in gaining their sympathy and understanding, he

had a hand in helping make Armenia one of the largest per-capita

recipients of US foreign aid.

 

(Mourad at podium; old photos; aerial view of Washington, DC; photos

of of Mourad)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: We knew we were dealing with somebody that just wasn't

your average guy off the streets.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The man who Pete Elliot first thought was

just a convenience store owner named Moose was turning out to be a

man with friends in some very high places.

 

(Mourad and Lucy meeting at restaurant)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: He had a number of connections to a lot of powerful

people.

 

HOCKENBERRY: This is a guy who visited the White House more than

once.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: A lot more than once.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

Announcer: When Time Bomb continues.

 

(Announcements)

 

Announcer: We continue with Time Bomb.

 

PHILLIPS: Federal Agent Pete Elliot has spent months searching for

the person who left 100 pounds of volatile explosives in a small town

storage locker. He's traced the lethal stash to a man who once owned

a local convenience store. But digging deeper, Agent Elliot has

learned the man whose nickname was Moose has some extraordinary

connections to an underground terror network and to the nation's

highest corridors of power. Here again, John Hockenberry.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) As Pete Elliot listened to that breakfast

meeting between Mourad Topalian and his former wife, Lucy, it became

clear that Topalian was a man with powerful connections. According to

ATF transcripts of the conversation, Mourad told Lucy he was supposed

to be somewhere far more important than the Bob Evans restaurant in

Cleveland.

 

(Excerpt of Mourad and Lucy's meeting; Bob Evans restaurant; White

House)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: (Voiceover) He say he was supposed to be at the White

House that day.

 

(White House)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: We started to find out who Mourad Topalian was that day.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) For instance, that Topalian was no stranger

to Bill Clinton's White House. He had visited the White House complex

nearly two dozen times between 1993 and 1996, according to government

records. He attended at least two gatherings with Mr. Clinton

himself. At one meeting he sat just one chair away from the

president.

 

(White House; photo of presidential meeting)

 

HOCKENBERRY: Did you ever figure he was too big of a fish, that he'd

get away, that he'd somehow undermine your efforts? This is a guy who

visited the White House, more than once.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: A lot more than once.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right. I was concerned. I was definitely concerned. I was

told by witnesses during this case that they--they were told by him

that I was going to be transferred during this case, that there was

no case against him, that this case was a farce and was not going to

be going anywhere.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Topalian's resume looked squeaky clean,

above reproach. He was a lecturer at the State Department, someone

who had testified before Congress, an upstanding vice president of a

community college. But Pete Elliot was convinced there was another

side to Mourad Topalian.

 

(Mourad leaving building with men)

 

HOCKENBERRY: I'm seeing somebody saying to himself, `You're coming

down, buddy. I don't care how long it takes.'

 

Mr. ELLIOT: If he's guilty, he's coming down. Correct.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Mourad Topalian, a man with powerful allies,

vs. Pete Elliot, an unheralded middle man at the beleaguered ATF. But

to Elliot, this was an opportunity. He would prove his own

investigative skills and help repair the reputation of the ATF,

stinging from high-profile debacles at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

 

(Mourad; Elliot at shooting range; burning of Waco buildings)

 

HOCKENBERRY: You made a vow that this case was not going to turn out

like some others.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right. Last thing I wanted was to, you know, not prove

this case, and have the media and have everybody else looking at this

thing and saying, `Well, the ATF should have never been involved.' I

haven't forgotten anything after Waco happened and how low our morale

was.

 

HOCKENBERRY: But at this moment in the fall of '96, you're--you're

carrying the flag for the whole agency, for--for a minute or two.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I felt that way.

 

HOCKENBERRY: It's amazing that all of these objects here tell a

story.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Everything left behind is something, some type of clue.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) But would those clues provide the answer to

two key questions? Why would a prominent person like Mourad Topalian

have a locker full of explosives and guns, and what connection might

the locker have with Armenia? Remember what Topalian had told his

former wife on that hidden camera tape.

 

(Elliot, reporter and weapons from storage unit; Mourad; weapons;

Mourad and Lucy meeting at restaurant)

 

Mr. TOPALIAN: (From hidden camera videotape) I didn't know what was

in there.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: (Voiceover) We had an obstacle on our hands.

 

(Mourad and Lucy meeting at restaurant)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: We had to show somebody had knowledge of the inside

contents of that storage unit to make it a prosecutable case.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Clearly, 100 pounds of dynamite would not be

easy to overlook if it were stacked in boxes inside a small locker.

Nor would the danger it posed be easily ignored. We asked the ATF to

show us how much damage 100 pounds of dynamite could do. Notice how

careful these experienced people are. And remember that the dynamite

inside the locker had begun to crystallize and had become highly

unstable.

 

(Boxes; photo of boxes of dynamite; man setting dynamite; explosion)

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Pete Elliot knew the danger. And he was

determined to find out who had left the explosives behind. Although

the original dynamite inside the locker had been destroyed, Elliot

had kept the boxes which still had on them something called the

ship-date code. The code acts as a kind of fingerprint, allowing the

explosives to be tracked to the manufacturer. ATF records showed this

particular dynamite had been stolen in 1976 from a construction site

in Michigan. Nearly two decades had passed, and the case was never

solved. Poring through the case file, Elliot found one of the prime

suspects. But would he talk?

 

(Boxes of dynamite; dynamite; Elliot at desk)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: It is all how you ask questions and present questions. I

ask everybody right off the bat, `Do you believe in God? Do you

believe there is a purpose for everything?' And boom, he did the

right thing.

 

HOCKENBERRY: And a secret locked away for years becomes another piece

in Pete Elliot's emerging puzzle. The man said he had been hired in

1976 by Mourad Topalian to acquire the explosives and have them

delivered to Cleveland.

 

So suddenly you had witnesses against Topalian.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: You had connections from the explosives to Topalian.

What about the weapons?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: We were able to develop a number of witnesses that could

show Mr. Topalian possessed and in some cases requested

certain--certain firearms. And we were able to link those directly to

Mourad Topalian and place them right in his hands.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) But what, if anything, did Topalian do about

the weapons? As Elliot crisscrossed the country, one witness led to

another. He began to hear unbelievable stories about a large group of

people who had formed a network in the 1970s, a network of terrorists

which operated throughout Europe and North America.

 

(Photo of weapons; news articles)

 

HOCKENBERRY: What did you begin to learn?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I learned in between 1975 and 1985 that there were a

number of unsolved bombings, that there was a number of unsolved

assassinations that had took place.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) It was a wave of terrorism which swept

across Europe and North America during the '70s, and 80s, all aimed

at Turkish officials and businesses. Armenian groups claimed

responsibility for assassinations of Turkish officials in the

Netherlands, France and Canada, as well as bombings in London, Paris,

Los Angeles and New York. But were they connected? Elliot was able to

link the explosives from the storage unit with two bombings in 1981,

one outside the Turkish consulate, and another at the Convention

Center in Anaheim, California.

 

(Bomb scene; bullet-ridden vehicle; crime scene; bombed car; boxes;

bomb site)

 

HOCKENBERRY: All of a sudden, the explosives in the storage unit have

in common explosives that have been used in actual terrorist

incidents.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: All directed at Turkish individuals.

 

HOCKENBERRY: All directed at Turkish individuals. Most, if not all,

with Armenian suspects.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Correct.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Armenian extremists at the time claimed

responsibility for the attacks, saying they were designed to avenge

the millions of Armenians murdered in 1915. Elliot learned that some

of the crimes in the US were carried out by the youngest members of

that network, many of them teen-agers at the time who were devoted to

the Armenian cause.

 

(Body being moved; old photos; bombed car)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Every single Armenian witness that I interviewed believed

in their hearts and in their minds that the genocide took place and

that their cause was legitimate.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) These previously classified documents

obtained by DATELINE showed that as early as 1981 the FBI was aware

of an underground organization of Armenians, a network in which

members anticipated orders to shoot or bomb someone. And the chilling

echo of al-Qaeda's tactics, according to Elliot, the witnesses said

that many of them were sent to training camps as far away as Beirut,

Lebanon. They were taught a variety of skills, including specialized

training in how to use guns and explosives, techniques of disguise

and infiltration, all useful for staging attacks.

 

(Documents; soldiers fighting)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: They'd go in and infiltrate Turkish ambassadors' offices.

They'd dress up, in some instances, like a Turkish reporter. They'd

surveil--survey everything in there and come back and report it back

to one person.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Members of the network told Elliot they had

used those very skills in a brazen attack 20 years ago, at the United

Nations.

 

(Person on stretcher; UN building)

 

Announcer: Who were some of the members of this global terror group?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: These were bombers.

 

(Voiceover) They had a lot of respect for Mr. Topalian.

 

(Mourad walking)

 

Announcer: When Time Bomb continues.

 

(Announcements)

 

Announcer: We now return to Time Bomb.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The area around the United Nations is

ordinarily quiet on a Sunday afternoon. October 12th, 1980, was no

different. Only a few strollers out and about. So it wasn't

surprising that no one noticed a blue Chevy parked just outside the

Turkish mission to the UN, just across from the main headquarters.

Inside the car, someone had packed five sticks of dynamite. Not much

compared to the 100 pounds of explosives left inside the storage

locker in Ohio. But as the ATF showed us, even a five-stick car bomb

creates an enormous blast. The bomb outside the Turkish mission went

off at about 10 in the morning. Three people were seriously hurt, and

the building was severely damaged.

 

(UN building; Turkish Center; buildings; explosives in box; explosion

of building; explosion of car; Turkish Center; man on stretcher; bomb

site)

 

Unidentified Man #2: I saw a sheet of flame coming up from the car,

pieces flying in all directions.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Not long after the New York blast, a group

calling itself the Justice Commandos for the Armenian Genocide

claimed credit for the attack, as well as attacks that same day in

London and Los Angeles. But the UN attack was by far the most

serious.

 

(Bomb site)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: (Voiceover) Mr. Topalian had sent a number of people to

canvas the United Nations prior to that bombing.

 

(UN building through window)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: They reported back to one person, and that person was Mr.

Topalian.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Elliot says he was told that Topalian was

directly involved in planning the operation, had hand-delivered the

dynamite and personally directed planting of the car bomb.

 

(Photo of Mourad; highway; bomb site)

 

HOCKENBERRY: Now you're as far as you can get from your original

theory of the Cleveland mafia.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: And it's beginning to look like some sort of

international terrorism network.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Yes, definitely.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Pete Elliot was discovering that Mourad Topalian would

not just a man who could use his charisma to schmooz with the

president of the United States and members of Congress. According to

people who knew him, he was also a man who could use that charisma to

motivate others to violence in the name of the Armenian cause.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I can tell you that every single Armenian told me stories

of their about their grandparents and about their relatives, and how

generations were cut off. I heard it, I saw their tears, I saw them

cry, I saw some of them fall to the ground. And these were bombers.

These were people that handled explosives. I heard them; they had a

lot of respect for Mr. Topalian.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) But the Armenian activists who had been

willing to help plan and execute bombing attacks in the '80s had

become teachers, doctors, and bankers by the '90s. They thought they

had put their violent past behind them.

 

(Photos of bombings)

 

HOCKENBERRY: These witnesses described Topalian as a leader, as

someone they were emotionally connected to. Why the heck did they

talk to you?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: They're different people now. They worked for their

cause. They didn't have anything to lose 25 years ago, but today they

did.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Elliot wasn't the first to think Topalian

might have been involved in the New York bombing. In 1988, he was

questioned about it by the FBI, but denied participating in the

attack. The witnesses now talking to Pete Elliot were telling a

different story. In almost every case, he says, the witnesses decided

to come forward only after they were told that the abandoned

explosives had been left in a place that posed so much danger to so

many people.

 

(Bomb site; explosives box; child care sign)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: They couldn't believe Mr. Topalian was stupid enough to

still have these explosives, but more stupid to keep them next to a

daycare center, a gas station and a school.

 

HOCKENBERRY: You've been investigating this case, you've been talking

to everybody. These are people with bombs. Were you worried about

something happening to you?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I guess that is always in the back of your--back of your

mind. And I believe you become numb to potentially what could happen

to you. There is never any direct threats towards me.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) But some militant members of the Armenia

community were worried about what Topalian might say if he was ever

taken into custody, silencing a former leader suddenly looked like a

good idea.

 

(Mourad)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Word was out that Mr. Topalian, if he would talk, could

potentially put together a lot of Armenian crimes directed at the

Turks from years and years ago.

 

HOCKENBERRY: So you were concerned at this point that suddenly this

guy with the bulls-eye around his head...

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right. Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: ...that you've been tracking could possibly be killed?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Yes.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The year-long pursuit between Pete Elliot,

the hunter, and Mourad Topalian, the hunted, had reached a

crossroads. But if he was to warn Topalian, Elliot would have to

knock on Topalian's front door and meet him face-to-face.

 

(Mourad walking; Mourad entering vehicle)

 

HOCKENBERRY: What happened when you identified yourself as Agent Pete

Elliot of the ATF?

 

Mr. ELLIOT: He looked completely in shock. I said, `Listen, I did

receive information that your life could potentially be in danger.

I'm going to give you the opportunity, you want to sit down and talk

to me, we can try to work this whole thing out.' And he never took me

up on that offer.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Instead, Elliot says Topalian dared Elliot

to make his case or drop the investigation all together. Elliot knew

he needed airtight evidence. He began to wonder if there had been

something else, some other clue inside the locker that perhaps he

overlooked. Something that would prove that Topalian knew what was in

there. What about that bank deposit envelope he'd found on top of one

of the boxes of dynamite?

 

(Photo of Mourad; excerpt of storage locker crime scene; photo of

bank deposit envelope)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: The address was 25890 Emery Road in Warrensville Heights,

from a Cleveland Trust that went out of business, I believe, in about

1979. I was able to dig and dig, and find out that Mourad Topalian

had an account at that specific branch.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Once more, the bank branch had been just a

few doors down from Topalian's convenience store. One more piece of

the puzzle. But it still wasn't enough. Then Elliot remembered the

final item he'd found in the locker: the torn trench coat lying on

top of the explosives boxes.

 

(Convenience store; photo of trench coat)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Sent that--that up to our ATF lab, and they were able to

find two very old hairs from 20 years ago that were inside one of the

sleeves, I believe, of that coat.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Elliot had the hairs sent to a lab for DNA

analysis. It was a long shot, but he knew the results could be

critical to the case.

 

(Laboratory)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I still remember the day when I received the call from

the lab, and I think they had to actually pull me out of the roof of

my building because I jumped so high when they told me it matched up

to Mr. Topalian's.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) It was the last decisive piece in what

seemed like a thousand piece puzzle. Elliot finally had the evidence

he needed to make an arrest.

 

(Lab equipment)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Went relatively pretty easy. He got out of his car, I

walked up to him, told him he was under arrest. He was in complete

and utter shock.

 

HOCKENBERRY: Do you remember what you said to Pete Elliot at that

moment?

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: Yes, as a matter of fact--as a matter of fact, we

did--we shook hands and we said, `We did it. We did what we had to

do. We did what we wanted to do.'

 

HOCKENBERRY: `We did it. We did what we wanted to do. So, burgers or

pizza for lunch?'

 

Mr. OLEKSIAK: That's about it. That's about right. That's exactly

right.

 

Announcer: The wheels of justice catch up with Mourad Topalian.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: It may be a month, it may be a year, but it could be 25

years later that the government could come back in your life and make

you accountable for your actions.

 

Announcer: The conclusion of Time Bomb.

 

(Announcements)

 

Announcer: We now return to Time Bomb.

 

PHILLIPS: Returning to our story, after a relentless four-year

investigation, federal agent Pete Elliot has finally made an arrest

in the mystery of the abandoned storage locker packed with deadly

explosives, machine guns and other weapons. But after so many years,

would the suspect Mourad Topalian face justice? Here again, John

Hockenberry.

 

HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) The wave of Armenian terrorism against

Turkish interests in the United States ended in the mid '80s. Pete

Elliot's investigation had stirred up memories that no doubt many

hoped had finally faded away. As for Mourad Topalian, he was charged

with numerous crimes, including conspiracy to steal, transport and

use explosives. The government said he had planned acts of violence

against Turkish government facilities and businesses and people of

Turkish descent. But he was never convicted of conspiracy or any acts

of violence, including the bombing at the United Nations.

 

Topalian pled guilty to storing stolen explosives and possession of

machine guns. In January 2001, he was given the maximum sentence of

37 months in prison. In a letter to the judge, Topalian said the

locker was supposed to be used to store records of people

contributing to the Armenian cause. And he insisted the locker had

not been opened for 15 years.

 

Topalian always claimed that Pete Elliot's investigation was designed

to discredit the Armenian cause. We don't know now if Topalian still

thinks what he did to further that cause was just. He declined

repeated requests for an interview. Nor do we know if he expected his

powerful political connections to somehow shield him from

prosecution, or if he figured there was just no way to trace him to

that abandoned storage room back in Bedford. One thing is certain,

Mourad Topalian didn't figure on ATF Agent Pete Elliot.

 

(Bullet-ridden vehicle; body being moved; person on stretcher; bomb

site; Mourad speaking with men; mug shot of Mourad; storage locker

door; old photos; photo of Mourad; photo of Mourad with men and Bill

Clinton; storage locker door; Mourad entering building)

 

Mr. ELLIOT: I looked and I didn't quit. I just kept digging, I kept

digging, and I kept digging.

 

HOCKENBERRY: But maybe that's one of the lessons here. That powerful

people, like Topalian...

 

Mr. ELLIOT: Right.

 

HOCKENBERRY: ...sometimes get a pass. But they don't get a pass from

an agent who is willing to go all the way for the truth.

 

Mr. ELLIOT: It may be a day, it may be a month, it may be a year, but

it could be 25 years later that people...

 

(Voiceover) ...the government could come back into your life and make

you accountable for your actions that happened 25 years ago.

 

(Mourad mug shot)

 

PHILLIPS: Two years ago, President Bush named Pete Elliot US Marshal

for Cleveland, Ohio. Mourad Topalian was released from federal prison

in 2003 and is still under law enforcement supervision until

September of next year.

[phantom22]

What an uncanny coincidence. This story coincides with Erdogan's visit.

 

I am sure the White House had their hand in this. Meanwhile Armenians overwhelmingly continue to pour large donations into the Republican Party.

[kakachik77]

Americans think turks are arabs anyways, I bet they were cheering that they "diplomats" were being targeted.

[phantom22]

The Republicans have worked very hard to create new "bogeymen" to replace the threats of Communism and irrational black people. Now we have the image of Levantines and homosexuals as the overwhelming threats to petrify the American public into voting for the Republicans. Edited June 15, 2005 by phantom22

[gamavor]

This whole documentary is ill orchestrated turkish plot. One sentance struck me off all the writing above:

 

The killings and the history remain largely

unknown to a global audience, but it is the defining historical event

for one million Americans of Armenian descent

 

The killings and hte history are LARGELY KNOWN to the global audience. It is brainwashed Amaroccans that are largely isolated bunch of idiots who don't know, or choose not to know.

[Z'areh]

You act dumb you get caught you do not cry! you throw bones to the dogs and they'll bark, and when they do....don't complain.

 

end of story!

Edited June 14, 2005 by Z'areh

[ED]

But the question is why now, why when there is a war waging against terror,

 

The story is almost 10 years old, I remember in the days and around 9/11 some special interest groups wanted to re-open Hambik Sasunians case, the truth is, there is a war going on (supposedly), against the enemy which we cant see nor has boundaries, and what is the most effective tool to use in order to frighten the American public?

Propaganda! Programs like this, this is not Turkish....this is American way of selling the war domestically, and in a very effective way.

 

US need wars, wars which will insure the American way of life, and NBC is a subsidiary of top ten defense contractors, General Electric.

[Z'areh]

Edward, regardless of the question "why now", stupidity backfires when you least expect it, I will say "why not now" if it serves the purposes of whatever forces that may be, that is besides the point, because if we are looking for friends in the neocon ruled Washington then we really are not on this planet.

 

Now we are also "lamenting" the fact that TIme magazine is distributing anti-Armenian propaganda....I guess it is a shock to find out that there are no friends in the board of directors of the Time magazines. Surprise Surprise !!!!!

 

If we peg our destiny on the "friendship" of forces that look upon us with contempt then we deserve what we get.

 

Let's not be stupid and work accordingly and let our enemies look for "friends".

 

Everytime we feel betrayed I feel it brings us closser to donkeyhood!

[TMNT]

Apparently, NBC is omiting the fact that America is the biggest arms exporter. When the weapons are used against them and their allies it is "terrorism", but when they are used against their enemies it is "rebellion".

[TMNT]

http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/1107587.jpg

 

Arnon Milchan 620

60 , self made

Track This Person

 

Source: New Regency

 

Net Worth: $1 bil

 

Country of citizenship: Israel

Residence: Tel Aviv, Israel

Industry: Media/Entertainment

Marital Status: divorced , 4 children

London School of Economics

University of Geneva Interpreters School

 

The Tel Aviv-born movie mogul responsible for megahits like Pretty Woman and L.A. Confidential founded New Regency Productions in 1991. The company enjoyed a $1.7 billion windfall last year from the sale of its stake in sportswear maker Puma. Milchan's own background is the stuff of movies. A former biochemistry student and soccer player, he successfully transformed his family's fledgling fertilizer company into a multimillion-dollar chemicals business. Parlayed that into a role as an arms dealer for Israel, which he coyly discussed in a 60 Minutes interview in 2000. (Milchan denies he was an arms dealer but admits to acting as an intermediary between the country and defense contractors like Raytheon.) Began bankrolling films for directors Sergio Leone and Martin Scorsese. Counts among his close friends Shimon Peres, Rupert Murdoch and Robert De Niro. .

 

From Forbes.com

Edited June 15, 2005 by TMNT

[MosJan]

i can't find a singel picture of him ( Murad TOPALIAN )

his arrest was only 13 days b4 Octtober 27 -

so it was on the 14th - some 10 days after Vazgen Sarkisyan was in Washington - who mett Gore - many do knwo it was not a nice and friandly end - but only13 days after - >>

 

Vice President Al Gore, who met with Prime Minister

Sarkisyan in Washington last month, also expressed

condolences to the Armenian people, saying he hopes

the assassinations will not weaken their commitment to

the democratic process and principles.

In Congress, House International Affairs Committee

chairman Benjamin Gilman said he and his colleagues

were appalled by what he called an act of "despicable

terrorism," and said Congress and the American people

stand ready to provide Armenians with the assistance

they need to help overcome the tragedy. (Signed)

NEB/DAG/TVM/JP<<<<

 

 

lets see what will happen soon

[Z'areh]

Mosjan, I don't get your connection between Vazken Sarkissian and Topalian????

[vava]

I don'T get TMTs association of Topalian and Arnon Milchan???

[TMNT]

I don'T get TMTs association of Topalian and Arnon Milchan???

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

Think about it, the FBI exposed a secret Armenian “terrorist” cell that had gone underground for 20 years, but turns a blind eye towards the criminal actions of Arnon Milchan. Milchan bankrolls Israel via Hollywood blockbusters, schmoozing with big name celebrities and therefore, is not hard to track. Which begs the question, why are they after small fish like Topalian? There not, so what are they after? Could this all be politics and cheap attempt to ridicule the Armenian cause? Yes and if so, logically who would be involved? *cough* Axis of good *cough*

 

To sum it up, what we spend at the theaters goes towards supplying Israel with Arms. Once the weapons are obsolete, they are sold to Turkey and then to Azerbaijan via Turkey. I am omitting the fact that Israel, a country as small as Armenia, is among the top weapons manufacturers and distributors in the world. They do work directly with Azerbaijan and did supply them with new military gear during the Artsahk/Karabagh war.

 

For the sake of objectivity, the Americans, English, French, and Russians all profit from ethnic conflicts around the world and use them as tools to push forward their geopolitical agenda, I am not arguing this point. Rather, I am dumbfounded as to why Topalian is being targeted, while the actions of Milchan are ignored.

Edited June 16, 2005 by TMNT