- EDITORIAL NOTE: In our original story
we indicated that the note written by Delmart "Mike" Vreeland
had been sealed in court records. We based this on a misreading of Canadian
press stories. In fact, the warning of the World Trade Center attacks,
written by Vreeland on either August 11th or 12th has been introduced into
open evidence in Vreeland's case in Toronto. Using court records in our
possession, FTW has scanned the document and it is available for viewing
in this story. We apologize for the error. Following is a revised story
which we feel is the best way to present this important information in
context.
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- TOROTNO (FTW) - Delmart Edward "Mike"
Vreeland, an American citizen whose claims to being a US Naval Lieutenant
assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) are being increasingly
corroborated in open court, has been in a Canadian jail since December
6, 2000. On August 11 or 12 of 2001, the date is uncertain, after trying
to verbally alert his Canadian jailers to the coming World Trade Center
attacks, he wrote down key information and sealed it in an envelope which
he then had placed in jailers' custody. This event is not disputed by Canadian
authorities. The letter specifically listed a number of targets including
The Sears Towers, The World Trade Center, The White House, The Pentagon,
The World Bank, The Canadian parliament building in Ottawa and the Royal
Bank in Toronto.
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- A chilling sentence follows the list
of targets, "Let one happen. Stop the rest!!!"
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- When the envelope was opened on September
14th it set off alarms in the US and Canada.
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- The US wants Vreeland back in the States
on a Michigan warrant for credit card fraud - using his own credit card.
Vreeland, convinced that a return to the US means certain death, wants
to stay in Canada in a witness protection program. His lawyers Rocco Galati
and Paul Slansky, two former Canadian prosecutors, agree with Vreeland's
assessment. They should. Both have been the victims of harassment and threats
including dead cats hung on porches and car windows smashed out in car
burglaries.
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- The position of the United States government,
as represented by Crown Solicitors in Toronto, is that all of this is nonsense.
Vreeland, says the Navy, was discharged as a Seaman after a few months
of service for unsatisfactory performance in 1986. He has never had anything
to do with intelligence according to 1200 pages of Navy records filed in
Toronto Superior Court.
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- "How is it," says Galati, "that
the Navy says that he was only in the service a few months and then send
us a 1200 page personnel file? Some of the entries are obvious forgeries
or alterations and the sanitizing of his records was done so hurriedly
that some dates of medical exams in the 1990s were left intact."
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- In a January 10, 2002 tactic worthy of
Perry Mason, with the greatest possible risk to his client if it failed,
attorney Slansky got the judge to agree to let him call the Pentagon from
open court. Using a speaker phone, in front of at least six witnesses,
Slansky first dialed directory information and got a number for the Pentagon
switchboard. Then, calling that number he asked the Department of Defense
operator to locate the office of Lt. Delmart Vreeland. Within moments the
operator had confirmed Vreeland's posting, his rank as a Lieutenant O-3,
his room number and given Slansky his direct-dial number.
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- All of this is a part of the court record.
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- On January 17, as this writer sat in
the courtroom, another mind-numbing event occurred.
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- As Vreeland sat shackled in a corner,
closely flanked by two guards, the Crown Solicitor sought to debunk Vreeland's
assertions that he had been assigned to travel to Moscow to review and
retrieve highly technical and classified documents pertaining to Russian
and Chinese efforts to counter the proposed US "Star Wars" missile
defense system. [Ed note: FTW believes this to be a cover story.] "Why,"
said the Crown Solicitor, "would the US choose, in a case involving
some of the most highly technical intelligence, a random seaman with training
in the tool and die field." The point that someone discharged in 1986
with no special training and rank would be sent to review technical documents
sounded reasonable - assuming that Vreeland's background was as the Solicitor
argued.
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- The reasonableness vanished a few moments
later as the Crown Solicitor argued that Vreeland, who has been in jail
and without access to a computer for thirteen months, had somehow cracked
the Pentagon's personnel records and inserted his name, an office number,
and telephone extension into the Pentagon database.
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- No one except for Vreeland and attorney
Galati seemed to notice the contradiction.
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- The Crown Solicitor ventured further
through the looking glass by then arguing that Vreeland, having certain
papers in his possession at the time of his arrest, had memorized Russian
and Albanian documents and then had translated them from memory. Vreeland
doesn't speak Russian or Albanian. The judge, noticing this stretch of
credibility, asked the Solicitor to restate the point. The argument then
became that Vreeland had an unnamed colleague go to an unspecified web
site, print Russian and Albanian documents for him, and then used foreign
language dictionaries to translate them.
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- Vreeland's extradition process could
take years and his time in jail has not been easy. There have been threats,
illnesses and his every move is watched. Galati and Slansky wonder how
long his psyche will hold up. The history of jailhouse deaths of key witnesses
leans heavily in favor of Vreeland's belief that he could be killed at
any moment. His apparent strategy is to not reveal any accurate Top Secret
material to either his lawyers or the press, hoping that his silence will
provide him with some support from US clandestine services. This a standard
approach taken in dozens of similar cases researched by FTW in the past
They include the cases - well known in research circles - of William Tyree
and Michael Riconosciuto. Tyree has been jailed on a questionable murder
conviction since 1979 and Riconosciuto on a variety or drug-related charges
since the early 1990s. Both men have been directly connected to CIA and
other intelligence operations by official documents.
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- "We don't need to know and we don't
want to know the secret details, "says Galati. "They're not necessary
for us to do the job of keeping our client alive and in Canada. He faces
a special danger in the US because he has also been an informant against
an organized crime family in Michigan where the criminal charges originate.
The most he is facing there is two years but we believe he might not live
for two days in that system."
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- Additional press reports indicate that
Vreeland's intelligence work was connected to drug smuggling - a much more
likely reason for his trip to Moscow. And the history of the relations
between Naval Intelligence and the mafia is documented as far back as the
Second World War when ONI officers made deals with convicted mafia don
Lucky Luciano and his lieutenant Vito Genovese to protect New York docks
and assist with the subsequent Allied invasion and occupation of Italy.
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- Mike Vreeland is one man who, in a rational
world, could totally expose the complicity of the US government in the
attacks of September 11th. No one has disputed what he wrote and stuffed
into that envelope. In a rational world that would be the most pressing
and public inquiry of all. The two questions remaining are whether Vreeland
will live and whether or not he will ever tell what he knows. That may
be a mutually exclusive proposition.
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- FTW has retained the services of freelance
journalist Greta Knutsen in Toronto to report on developments in this critical
case for our subscribers. Important updates will be posted and sent out
via subscriber bulletin to our readers as they become available.
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- The Warning Written by Mike Vreeland
Before 9-11:
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- http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/01_28_02_vreeland.jpg
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