US Inspector general clears US embassy staff from improper role in arms shipments

TIRANA, March 18 – The United States State Department’s top investigator on Wednesday cleared senior diplomats serving in Albania of any role in an alleged cover-up of the illegal source of ammunition a U.S. military contractor shipped to Afghanistan’s security forces.
Robert A. Wood, a department spokesman, said that the agency’s inspector general had “found nothing to substantiate criminal or any other allegations concerning Department of State employees.”
“The Department of Justice has informed the Office of the Inspector General that these six Department of State employees at Embassy Tirana are not targets or subjects of investigation,” said a statement, adding the matter was considered closed.
The Department of Justice has informed the Office of the Inspector General that these six Department of State employees at Embassy Tirana are not targets or subjects of investigation.
The Department welcomes the statements by the Department of Justice and the Inspector General and considers this matter closed. Ambassador Withers and his team performed exactly as we would have expected them to do. We are proud and grateful for their service.
In June 2008 there were media allegations that U.S. Ambassador John L. Withers II and five other members of the U.S. Embassy country team in Tirana, Albania were somehow involved in efforts to cover up facts related to the sale of Chinese-origin munitions to the U.S. Department of Defense in contravention of U.S. law.
Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, charged the State Department of attempting to conceal Withers’ role in allegedly approving a plan to remove evidence that ammunition being supplied by AEY Inc. was made in China between 1962 and 1974. AEY bought the bullets in Albania before transporting them to Afghanistan even though U.S. law bars the purchase of Chinese-made ammunition.
Withers, a career foreign service officer, said he was “pleased that the truth is now clear, and that the contributions of these fine officers to our country’s service have been recognized.”
“I am gratified that the Department of Justice and the Department of State now consider the allegations against me and other officers at Embassy Tirana closed. Those officers – Stephen Cristina, Patrick Leonard, Paula Thiede, Victor Myev, and Robert Newsome – are among the finest diplomats I know. As I said last year, “a fair examination of the evidence will lead, in the end, to the truth.” I am pleased that the truth is now clear, and that the contributions of these fine officers to our country’s service have been recognized,” said Withers in a statement.
Pentagon awarded a nearly $300 million ammunition supply contract to AEY in January 2007. AEY’s top executive, Efraim Diveroli, was 21 at the time and the company already had a record of shoddy performance on government work.
Under a series of contracts, AEY provided potentially unsafe helmets to troops in Iraq, failed to deliver 10,000 pistols to Iraq, and shipped inferior ammunition to U.S. Army special-forces, according to the committee report.
AEY’s Afghan ammunition contract has been terminated and Diveroli and three others are charged with fraud for selling the prohibited Chinese ammunition.
Overall, the Defense and State departments have terminated or withdrawn seven contracts with AEY due to the company’s failure to perform, according to the committee report.
Diveroli has pleaded not guilty of defrauding the Pentagon. Diveroli, who remains free on bail, faces decades in prison if convicted of all 71 counts.
Prosecutors say Diveroli’s company, AEY Inc., provided banned Chinese-made ammunition to forces in Afghanistan and claimed it came from Albania.