03Sep07 - by Tony Gosling – www.public-interest.co.uk

Verint Systems, the Israeli security company contracted to manage and operate London Underground’s CCTV network has become embroiled in a serious fraud case in New York. Ex Chief Executive of parent company Comverse Technologies, Jacob ‘Kobi’ Alexander faces legal action to bring him back to the U.S. for trial after absconding with $13 million and being arrested in Namibia.

Verint Systems, meanwhile, remains suspended from the New York NASDAQ index since February 2007 because it hasn't filed financial statements required by law. Eyebrows have been raised particularly because Verint is entrusted with the safety and security of three million people a day on the tube.

Contractual arrangements are complicated by the collapse of Metronet which signed the thirty year CCTV contract with Verint ten months before the 7/7 London bombs.

The ‘stock option backdating’ scandal first came to light last year in the Wall Street Journal. Kobi Alexander is wanted for cheating shareholders out of nearly $6.5 million dollars by illegally backdating the buying and selling of lucrative stock options. Alexander is accused of laundering the money through accounts set up under fictitious names such as I. M. Fantom (I am phantom). The Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates companies listed on the New York stock exchange, is seeking Alexander’s extradition from Namibia on 35 counts of fraud.

Both companies are close relations with Western Intelligence Agencies. They provide telephone surveillance software and mobile phone voicemail software used to gather information on those suspected of being ‘terrorists’ or ‘subversives’. They are also one of the companies providing systems for recording phone calls automatically through numbered menu systems.

Possibly more worrying are the close links between these companies and the Israeli Army. Both Kobi Alexander and the present CEO of Verint are ex Israeli Army officers. Chief Executive of Verint, Daniel Bodner, was an officer in the Israeli Engineers.

Latest news is that the two companies, Comverse and Verint, plan to split. Kobi Alexander’s latest extradition hearing in Windhoek is on November 12th.

Serious concerns remain about the lack of London Underground CCTV images of the London Bombers on 7th July itself, as opposed to those published of a ‘dummy run’ of the bombing suspects two weeks earlier. Also an exercise on 7/7 by Visor Consultants with imaginary bombs at the exact four locations where the real bombs went off has raised more questions than it has answered.

Also to be considered is the vanishing CCTV footage from Stockwell Underground Station of the moments leading up to the killing of Brazilian Electrician Jean Charles De Menezes. LU staff handed checked and correct CCTV tapes over to the Metropolitan Police but were later told there was nothing on them.

The 2005 London bombs’ targeting of innocent members of the public mirrors attacks in 1980 at Bologna Railway Station in Italy where 85 people died, and the Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich where 13 perished. These bombings were later discovered to have been carried out by far-right fascist units of NATO’s Operation Gladio, not the left wing Red Brigades and Baader Meinhof as originally announced in the press.

These and other disturbing questions will only be answered, and the safety of London’s transport staff and travelling public restored by a full and open public enquiry into the events of 7th July 2005.


References

Charles De Menezes Family Campaign - www.justice4jean.com

NATO’s Secret Armies, Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Daniele Ganser, Cass Publishing, 2005.

BBC Radio 5 and ITN, interviews with Peter Power of Visor Consultants, 7th July 2005.

Bosses behaving badly - The mind-boggling mishaps that took place in the executive - and hotel - suite. By Adam Horowitz, David Jacobson, Tom McNichol, and Owen Thomas - Comverse Technology - Kobi Alexander - His mistake: the fake passport with the name I.M. Outtahere...  http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0701/gallery.101dumbest_bosses/12.html

July 7 bombers staged dummy run, Police release new CCTV images,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1574256,00.html

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION - Litigation Release No. 19796 / August 9, 2006 -  http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2006/lr19796.htm

Kobi Alexander extradition hearing postponed again in Namibia - August 13, 2007 -  http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzkobi0814,0,897713.story