hello and welcome to our two young parents got your top stories and time american protests rage in egypt over a u.s. film considered an insult to islam in cairo police fired tear gas at protesters who threw molotov cocktails and think less embassy washington sons warships and marines to libya to hunt down those who killed the bastard there. the federation all up plans from the e.u. cheaper to buy nations together to form a formidable anti concepts force but the reach of the central bank policing

everyone's finances critics say it's a plan to seize political power and a cure. all the netherlands all vertues stick to the euro road as conservatives scooped the majority vote they may form a coalition with the labor party with similar economic views but the pro euro parties are still set to renegotiate some of staring measures. thanks that we put the spotlight on an irish man accused by the us of being a russian agent. hello

again and welcome to the spotlight this interview shall i and i will laugh and today my guest. which someone. believed to be a russian name as you will learn from the program the russians are coming used to be a famous phrase in america during the cold. truck and sometimes made fun of the hysteria over the u.s. soviet stand up the cold war is over but this still seems to be that and sometimes even innocent people get stuck on a few years ago every hour arrested an irish businessman accusing him of spying for russia he was unaware of the crimes he had allegedly committed but it took him much time and effort to prove his innocence before he was finally released so how does it feel to find oneself in the middle of a spy scandal and how is it possible that an innocent man had to break his back

proving he was not. here's the man himself. mr danny sudanese your deal with two thousand five hundred twenty california on a business trip he struck a deal with the firm so it can valley and was on his way back to iowa he's clocked was halted on the tarmac of los angeles airport f.b.i. agents came on board the businessman away in handcuffs. was charged with trying to x. . for defense articles to russia and faced up to ten years in prison he was released after fifteen weeks in custody and his company nearly bankrupt five years after the incident dennis rolled into memoir called the russians a commie referring to the famous cold war era catchphrase although he was never formally charged he's quite sure americans still think he's

a russian agent. who is the subaru welcome to the show thank you thank you very much very mostly thank you thanks for coming in first of all. goodness what is your business in russia that brought you to silicon valley because because if your business is find it as i understand that actually cause you all the trouble they had to come from there i think it's not particularly associated with russia we do business also in china and india but just to say a few words about it we had a project in california. and this involves exports of a piece of equipment from from can the from california to to garland to arm the my business is in our. well as far as i understand as far as i read in the papers there was that thing called the there are more duley is that the equipment let us

through this is not can you tell us about this did what you later thing you wanted to buy in california an expert did because because you were accused. of buying something this strategic and this demand to live you supposedly is strategically secret equipment or what. this is the funny part of the story because in fact this deployed letter was not secret equipment what is it it's basically a device for receiving data and putting it into a computer like like your wife i for example except a little faster but in fact this demodulator had documentation from the united states department of commerce that it was commercial free for export. and so the whole problem was actually a mistake so what was it was it really a mistake how do you think it was done and some purpose by then by the americans so

you know i think it was absolutely a mistake absolutely absolutely ok you you compared the methods used by the american detention by those described by a soldier knutson is good. this is true with oracle exaggeration i mean he used or what are they really comparable they are can i just say some words about the american justice system. for ups your viewers don't realize this but there are two systems. there is a system for people who are rich and well connected and this this is used by one or two percent of the population the rest unfortunately confess. confess usually after a long struggle and for example last year two thousand and eleven ninety seven percent of the people in the federal courts confessed. of those who struggled further with the system less than one half of one percent were acquitted

half of one percent so if you start this into the system. two hundred people start into it one at most it's actually flights question a bit less than one hundred so implying that you have to have contacts you have to know the right people were you just should afford a very good attorney. own lawyer basically a person without a good attorney without the resources without the contacts has a very very small chance and this is the reason. why people confess. they confess because they're in the end given a choice maybe months and months into the process either you will face the courts and you will have thirty five years in prison are except maybe two or three years

and this is this is the choice i was given so i understand that i was given this three points in the process. so and you and you chose to to to struggle well. can i just go step by you there is so the story starts as i was sitting in an aircraft for f.b.i. agents came pulled me off put in you to chain around i was going out of the house newt. pulled me off. put me in chains handcuffs i ended up in prison. i was there for a couple of days softening up i guess and then i was brought to court but what i do know is that the authorization from the united states department of commerce was in their hands because that was given to them or authorization for that device to my spirit. so immediately they understood this is a mistake but it took

a further six weeks before they decided to drop the case and when you were brought to court after these first couple of days did did you did you hire a lawyer or what or you just. first tried to to to explain to everybody that this is a misstatement he did nothing wrong but well first of all i was not allowed to make telephone calls at all what about that telephone call. to duty happened did anybody didn't read your rights as a matter of yes yes of course they read me my rights at that telephone call it should be in their rights you know it's not it's not it's actually in the movies it isn't the right it's a mistake or it's yeah you have the right to the attorney i read one telephone call that it's not. the day in courts i was very lucky that we managed to get a message out through another one of the prisoners and i did have an attorney but what was clear to me is that the intention was to give me

a state attorney before going to courts i was told by the f.b.i. agents to confess that if i confessed instead of ten years i would be getting less but it took if is that your you were spying for russia is no no no no it confessed that i was exporting ex-military i had no training when did you learn you were a russian spy well this this was this was a little tag on to the story we had at the time in the united states. and it is by the dave of dave says e he was head of. he was head of counterintelligence in the united states and was trying to promote his career and grab this as a spy and so he grabbed your case which was a mistake in the case but he had to deal with contraband at war like with smuggling a device allegedly smuggling a device out of the country and he tried to tie two to two of the intelligence men just buying their so so so actually you were not officially accused of knowing for

i was never accused of anything but it's just just what it would take six weeks what will i. suppose the six weeks is the first part of the story because after six weeks they finally agreed that there was no case we have the documentation saying that his is fully legitimate business so there was no case. so then i was i was offered five years in prison for telling a lie which was also not true so i deny that i was there i did to this day i cannot understand it i've read it many many times to you like to who. they said in an interrogation in interrogations and this this was before going to court the first time. at the time i was told that i was facing ten years. according to roman law. a suspect we tried following in interrogation i think he has two years to learn he doesn't even swear

in a bible because because you know if if you're interrogated by the f.b.i. and you tell a lie it's a five year prison sentence and this this is quite commonly used to put people in prison when the first case fails it's a very common technique but the supposedly i was was so silly this i rejected it but this isn't the end of the story and it took it out. in the world it took another that's week six it took another ten weeks or two weeks to go through and i was ok so the final stage. at this stage i had studied the american system i knew that i fell into the ninety seven percent who have to confess there's no way out of it simply because of the cost of the court case the difficulties it could take two years and cost a half million. and i wanted to see my family my father was dying so i knew i had

to confess. so the prosecutor came and said dennis think of something. and so we were thinking thinking thinking and i thought about the package there was a mistake in the labeling and most of us yes maybe i was guilty of collusion conspiracy in this mislabeling dozen or such crimes by the witnesses this is fictitious but i had misses and i paid twenty thousand fine and went home so you were accused finally no i accepted it he got from the fest i was never actually used or anything. so so so you could first of all of committing a crime it's not a crime it's not this is so so so you that you are not a criminal today nobody can really know there is no such crime and it doesn't exist so you have to convert to some something and say something so i confessed to this non-crime and paid

a fine and went on and all in all it took the eckstein weeks sixteen weeks in court for four for a simple mistake without ever an apology with no compensation my business was almost destroyed. and i think. that is the deadliest sue group all through all the russians a comic book we'll talk about it and in minutes we'll be back after a short break so stay with us. wealthy british style sign. on the title of. the. markets why not.

find out what's really happening to the global economy with max concert for a no holds barred global financial headlines in two cars a report on. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. welcome back to spotlight just a reminder that my guest on the show today is there in this group author of the book called the russians are coming. and the text on the cover page of your book

claims that the and rattling of the reason for your foul circulation leads all the way to the white house ok explain what do you mean by that. the only you said it it was a simple mistake by the f.b.i. agents. yes of course the motivation is is clear it was a mistake. very quickly that was realized but in the meanwhile. dave says he who was head of contradictions tried to take this and make it into a spy case the reason for that was that he was looking for the job of spying in the united states job which eventually went to negro point to. who is very infamous for his. his involvement in nicaragua and such places. so this was the motivation but there was a second motivation. and this this was

a meeting upcoming between george bush and vladimir putin oh oh. at this meeting there was reference for this case but the case had disappeared with the state so so so they wanted to mean bush wanted to pull it out of his sleeve and lead him or your people at the moment we're talking the our people are spying. that was the intention in my research i found that this this program had begun earlier in the process during november and december of two thousand for. the preparation of people's minds that there was in fact russian spying going on and this was supposed to be. brought up at this meeting this is my view there is an opinion there during the bush years the counter intelligence the secret service

system of the united states was it was managed very poorly and it actually function poorly after you after you wrote your book after you made some research do you agree that and and did they do something to improve the system since since march. well. i don't know because i'm not a spy on. the small island i think it was because she was supposed to do really check whether you know now. let's get back to to to the days you spent in the american jail what what did you find particularly humiliating what was the hardest for for a person like you to to end up in jail and to end to spend days and days and weeks . i think first was the isolation. i knew that my family did not know where i was there was no communication i think that was part of the pressure tactic

. certainly at this time my father was was ill i was very concerned about him. that the whole experience of jail is not a pleasant one your freedom of course is completely curtailed the food is appalling . very very difficulties. but strangely the people who were in the prison i found very nice and normal people even inmates only once the inmates i found them very nice people very hospitable you know them you met there when you went out in the mean of the sower or you were kept in a in a cell with with that in. the overall prison section had one hundred twenty people who are free to move around at certain times during our day so that at these times during library the gym things that there was more library no longer elaborate but

there was a small gym. and during easing times we could we could talk they were mostly criminals that were with the world also spies like you said. as i have a vessel you know they were. mostly there were there for drug offenses mostly mostly drug offenses like the loser or people board drugs illegally. i think mostly dealers struck dealers so can we say that the majority of inmates of american prisons today drug dealers i think so either drug dealers are drug users are drug users who have a little bit over the limit for example marijuana to understand yeah well so so so some of this is this is this is the number one if i'm going to the most the most common effect i believe i believe of what did you want i'm so nice because because there was drugs and that i mean no. but i just wasn't

a very very nice people and some of the stories were quite sad. i remember one this that that really struck me was this american. texan texas night sorry not that a man. who was there he had been stopped drugs were found in his car he had spent eight months in prison and he was then deported but all his life he had been in the united states he hadn't actually formalized his citizenship so he was deported but he had never been where he was deported to and so he came back to his wife and children and business and he was again stopped and now he was imprisoned again for eight months and he would then be deported and what he said to me is that he has to come back he has no choice is his life is there so his third count could possibly be for life because of the trees strikes could possibly be that if he

continues coming back and back again just to hear from his there is no choice but that he's not allowed to it's not so so. it's not the subject of our interview but drug dealing in the united states isn't a success story. because as we watch the movies the drug dealers are ok i mean i mean they are the people who. have to assemble for their number in the prison that only maybe it's not a good mosley's these are the stands to reason i mean i mean i mean it's not a success we under streets i mean usually ok when you were in jail and when you were suspected for for spying for russia for buying this device to sell to the russians or whatever they did did the russian consulate or the russian embassy or the russians somehow try to help you out because the day

they were supposed to know that you were suffering for nothing. i know and you argue that i don't believe so but but it wasn't the responsibility of the russian going no you know the reporters thought that you were there to at least tell somebody that this guy is in this party all these things every time i mean i don't i think there was great as reporters the embassy said no comment now but the responsibility was with the irish embassy i am an irishman not a not a russian man and they did a considerable amount to help me. there's the fact that the accusation against to a foreign leader well actually there were no no formal accusation and that you were finally freed this it means that whatever the system but it works i mean the american judicial system. would you say that it works and i think i think in my case that field. because if it worked you would have been in jail nor that you did

this istomin is a little different you have you have the system for the rich and the well connected the other ninety seven or ninety eight percent are actually convicted at the beginning when you see rich you don't mean yourself though you are successful because i'm not an american but you're not rich but you're not rich by the standards of the american judicial system you have to be rich and i should i should have i should have. said american rich american rich and i'm not american but if you were an american american passport holders with your income would you be considered rich i doubt if you doubt we should be much richer we should be like an oligarchy and million here you. have an irishman. going to just just to answer the question. the conviction starts at the beginning the police decide that a person is guilty and the only the only way to conclude it is to accept

some amount of prison or some punishment there is no judge involved this this is this is completely done by the police and by the prosecutor and the end of the process is the man except that he's guilty of something not necessarily the crime for which he was arrested but he will accept something. after your wrists the time magazine published a piece called the russians are coming all the this actually is. the name you you chose field where you were called the russian spy without any shadow of doubt how's the time published any apologies or corrections or were anything after the accusations turned out to be false no never and they and they didn't mind i mean they did the phone so if embarrassed i doubt it i doubt it we didn't get in touch with will with heads who i sent i sent

a copy of the book but there was no response from them. so. why would you say because because you are not the rich american there would be perhaps perhaps but there were there was no apology. and i didn't expect to so i did. brief an attorney to look here's going to court i was told us i would definitely win but the win would amount to perhaps one dollar and an apology would cost me huge amounts of time and expense of course. if i understood you rightly no one ever apologized to you that is correct. but did you feel anybody at least being being humiliated and embarrassed by the fact that they detained an innocent person and cause them trouble and caused them losing money and time when i know i know absolutely not in fact business as usual and for business as usual in

fact i think through rather disappointed first that i didn't accept a confession and managed to slip through. so what would you suggest to a person trying to do business and that's it's oh yeah absolutely it's a wonderful place so wonderful place and it's and i should point out that russia is a wonderful place. but just be a little careful. doc the eyes get the documents. and that's what i had to hesitate to say i'm sorry that's what i had i'm sorry i had all the documents that supports what you're doing and this is why i'm sitting here i'm not in prison well congratulations on your play thank you thank you very much for being with us and yesterday mind you that i guess today was dennis sigrid all through college the russians are coming and that's it for the out for all of us here if you want to have yourself part of what you have someone in mind what he should think i should do next time to drop a line of al green up at our t.v.

dot are you let's start and i. will be back with more of your comments on what's going on in and outside pressure until then they are clean and taking taking .