welcome back and this is where travel the headlines. protesters stormed the u.s. embassy in yemen as a wave of curious friends across the muslim world in response to a u.s. made filled with trucks of islam to people have reportedly been killed and several wounded in clashes with police outside the compound in sana. milestones until dancer change between protesters and police in cairo as another anti u.s. demonstration descends into scenes of violence at this hour the country's president is in brussels aiming to stride business deals with the e.u.

these are live pictures from cairo for you. on the also the family condemns all of tyrants all u.s. diplomats calling them terrorists on some of these are those in russia who say this kind of a tongues that were inevitable because of washington's controversial policies in the middle east during and after the arab spring. and up next aboard this poor white on an irish man accused by the you are so being a russian agent. hello again and welcome to spotlight and. to another laugh and today my guest is

dennis which someone. believed to be a russian. program the russians are coming used to be a famous phrase in america during the cold. this truck and sometimes made fun of the hysteria over the u.s. so. 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 committed but it took him much time and effort to prove his innocence before he really really so how does it feel to find oneself in the middle. and how is it possible that an innocent man had to break his back grooving he was not. piers the man himself.

mr danny's suv he was an ordeal began in two thousand and five when two california on a business trip he struck a deal with berman so it can valley and was on his way back to iowa he's flogged was painted 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 wrote a memoir called the russians are coming the furring 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 for reminding thanks thanks for coming on first of all oh goodness what is your business in russia that brought you to silicon valley because because it's your business is find it as i understand that actually cause you all the trouble they had to come from so 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 from california to to our lunch to our and my and 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 due later is that the equipment let us through this is not can you tell us about this did more do 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 later supposedly is strategically secret equipment or what. this is 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 is was commercial free for export. and so the whole problem was actually a mistake so was it was it really a mistake but do you think it was done and some purpose by them by the americans so you know i think it was absolutely a mistake absolutely necessary ok you you compared the methods used by the american

detention by those described. in is good. this is true with oracle exaggeration i mean you used or what are they really combative 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 hearth heart of one percent so if you start this into the system.

two hundred people start into it one at most it's actually quite quite 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 contexts has 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 cheney in 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 myself. 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 happen did anybody didn't read your rights as a matter of yes yes of course they read me my rights and 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 he have the right to the attorney i read one telephone call that it's not. listing the day in court 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 military when did you learn you were russian spy well this this was this was a little tag and the story we had at the time in the united states. and hideous by the dave of dave c.z. he was head of. he was head of counter intelligence in the united states and was trying to promote his career and grab this as a spy 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 spying there so so so actually you were not official he accused of knowing for i was never accused of anything but 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 it 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 and a suspect we tried following in interrogation i think he has two years to learn he doesn't even swear on 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 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 word it took another that's week six it took another ten weeks of the two x. to argue when 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 ago 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 way this is fictitious but i had misses and i paid twenty thousand fine and went home so you were accused of finally no i accepted it he got from the first i was never actually accused of anything. so so so you confess all of committing a crime it's not a crime it's not. you are not a criminal today what if scenario there is no such crime on the street doesn't exist so you have to confess to something and say something so i confess to this non crime and paid a fine and went home and over. the next ten weeks sixteen court for four

for a simple mistake without ever an apology with no compensation my business was on this destroyed. nothing that is dead is so good all through the russians a comic book will talk about it and in minutes i will be back after a short break so stay with this. secret lover tori mccurry was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which on fortunately doesn't sound anything turns mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans and. this is why you should care only.

what come back to spotlight just to remind you that my guest on the show today is then is really the author of the book called the russians are coming there is text on the cover page of your book claims that the unraveling of the reason for your foul circulation leads all the way to the white house ok explain what do you mean by that. the more delusional 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 nigger point to. who is very infamous for his. his involvement in and you could argue 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 out of this leaving

the ladder your people at the moment we're talking the our people are spying and. that was the intention in my research i found that this this program had begun earlier in the process during november in the summer of two thousand and four. 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 have to have made some research do you agree that and and did they do something to improve the system since since bush.

well. i don't know because i'm not a spy on every small island and i think that's because you are supposed. to do really check whether or not. 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 and 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 curtails 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 meets the inmates i found them very nice people very hospitable humid them you met the 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 i think there was more library no longer elaborate but there was a small gym. and during eating times we could we could talk they were mostly criminals that we were the one who also spies like you said. as i have admitted you know they were. mostly there were there for drug offenses mostly mostly drug offenses like

the illusion or people wore drugs illegally. i think mostly dealers start dealers so can we say that the majority of inmates 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 and marijuana too are you all 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 if i believe i believe some of what did you find 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 that. really struck me was this american texan texas night story 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 in prison 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 he continues coming back and the hostages from which there is no choice but he's not allowed to know so so. it's not the subject of our interview but drug dealing in the united states isn't

a success story. because as you watch the movies the drug dealers are ok i mean i mean they are the people who. have to assemble for the number in the prison the only movie it's not a good mostly these are the stands to reason i mean i mean i mean it's not a success with under street selling drugs and all i mean usually ok but when you were in jail and when you were suspected for for spying for russia for buying these devices or 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 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 they could have at least told somebody that this guy is in this party all these things every time i

mean i don't i think there is great as reporters the embassy said no comment now but the responsibility was with the irish embassy i'm an irishman not a russian man and they did a considerable amount to help me. there's the fact that the accusation against to finally 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. i think in my case and failed . because if it weren't you would have been in jail and know 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 don't doubt we should be much richer we should be like an oligarchy a million here you. have an irishman. 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 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 accepts 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 for your book where you were called a russian spy without any shadow of doubt how was the time published any apologies are 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 the 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 for ups but there were there was no apology. and i didn't expect to so i did. brief

an attorney to look at us 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 him losing money and time when i know i know absolutely not in fact business as usual and from business as usual in fact i think through rather disappointed 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. 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 the supports were doing and this is why i'm sitting here i'm not in prison well congratulations anyway thank you thank you very much for being with us and yesterday mind you that i guess today was dennis are so good all through it all the russians are coming and that's it for the out for all of us here if you want to have your sales partner or you have someone in my shop think i should do next time to drop a line of al green up at r.t.g. dot are you let's start and i. will be back with more comments on what's going on in and outside pressure until then stay on our team and take you you take

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