Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai (62) , a Kashmiri-origin U.S. citizen arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on July 19, 2011 for allegedly acting as an unregistered lobbyist of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy and tax violations.


Fai’s guilty plea pertained to a decades-long scheme to conceal the transfer of at least $3.5 million from the government of Pakistan to fund his lobbying efforts in America related to Kashmir, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

Specifically Fai pleaded guilty on two counts of “criminal information,” the DOJ reported, explaining that the first count was conspiracy to falsify, conceal and cover up material facts he had a duty to disclose; and to defraud the Treasury Department by impeding the lawful functions of the IRS in the collection of revenue. The second count to which he admitted guilt was the charge of endeavouring to impede the administration of tax laws.

Following a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady in the Eastern District of Virginia, it was noted that Fai faces a maximum potential sentence of five years in prison for the conspiracy count and a maximum three years in prison for the tax violation. Sentencing has been set for March 9, 2012. Further as part of his plea agreement, Fai has agreed to forfeit his interest in $142,851.32 seized by the government in July 2011, the DO said.

In a case that rocked the already dismal U.S.-Pakistan relationship over the summer the arrest of Fai was followed by revelations that he had served as the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a non-governmental organisation in Washington, D.C According to court documents, the KAC was “secretly funded by officials employed by the government of Pakistan, including the ISI.”

Commenting on the case Neil MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said, “For the last 20 years, Mr. Fai secretly took millions of dollars from Pakistani intelligence and lied about it to the U.S. government,” adding that as a paid operative of ISI, Fai did the bidding of his handlers in Pakistan while he met with U.S. elected officials, funded high-profile conferences and promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.

Casting a light upon some of the details of Fai’s scheme,the DOJ said in a statement that to prevent the Justice Department, FBI, Department of Treasury and the IRS from learning the source of the money he received from officials employed by the government of Pakistan and the ISI, Fai made a series of false statements and representations, according to court documents.

“For example, Fai told FBI agents in March 2007 that he had never met anyone who identified himself as being affiliated with the ISI and, in May 2009, he falsely denied to the IRS on a tax return for the KAC that the KAC had received any money from foreign sources in 2008,” the DOJ said.