***All Rights Reserved – Alex Weir 2008 ***

UK Government fails in their attempt to assassinate the Scottish inventor of a fraud-proof voting system for the 3^rd World

It started maybe some years ago – A black Zimbabwean friend of mine was round at our place in Harare and we were brain-storming. One of the subjects which he brought up was – would it be possible to use IT (information technology) to solve the democracy problem in Zimbabwe and in so many other 3^rd world countries? We looked at each other for 30 minutes, thought deeply, but nothing was apparent..

April through August 2006 I was having a series of brainwaves coupled with mid-night insomnia. I created 3 concepts, the 2^nd of which was a Tamper-Proof Electronic Voting System for the 3^rd World. The first was a very low-cost electronic mailbox/messaging system for people without mobile phones (yes – some of these people do exist). And the 3^rd was a low-cost, highly secure electronic and mobile banking system.

All of these systems were quite difficult to imagine or conceive, but once conceived were and are very simple to understand and to create. A Swedish software guy commented that unless you were on the ground in the 3^rd world, it would be almost impossible to conceive of the solutions or even of the need for them.

During August 2006 I peddled my voting system around the foreign embassies of Harare. I got the usual response, to which I have become very inured and accustomed – complete disinterest and sometimes even hostility. After a lot of persuasion, I finally got an appointment to present at the British Embassy – to Philip Barclay, FCO’s man in Harare – on 6 September 2006. I presented for 10-20 minutes and then he asked a few questions, to which I responded. Then, sensing something, I said ‘ Of course if your organization isn’t interested in real democracy then a system like this might not be welcomed…’. He responded – ‘You know, sometimes democracy can be a dangerous thing….’.

A similar experience May 2007, when presenting to an official at the Chinese Embassy in Harare – he stopped me after 3 minutes of the presentation and said – ‘Your system – it is dangerous!’ (I agreed).

Andrew Ellis – Operations Manager of International IDEA in Stockholm (similar in function to the Carter Center and supposedly a pro-democracy organisation) – by email February 2007 – ‘[Alex Weir’s voting system] … has undesirable implications…’

The British Ambassador to Malawi - November 2006 – when talking to Tony Farnum, a private election consultant to the UNDP – ‘[Alex Weir’s voting system] … is politically unacceptable!’ (He meant politically unacceptable to the British, not to the Malawians).

The day after I presented to the British Embassy in Harare I flew to London, from where I spent 3 full months campaigning to have my system welcomed by the West and the International Community. It was an uphill task, and almost without any yield. Emailing, phoning, and some face-to-face visits (to Stockholm, Kopenhagen, and Bruxelles). Contacting about 50 international organizations, including World Bank, Clinton Foundation, Carter Center, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) in Washington DC, International IDEA in Sweden, the European Commission in Brussels, OSI (George Soros), IMF, DFID, FCO, Norad, SIDA, Danida, UNDP, OSCE, Westminster Foundation, Electoral Reform Society, Greater London Authority, Scottish Executive, Transparency International, Amnesty International, United Nations Electoral Assistance Division, USAID etc etc etc..

I got an interview on the BBC World Service Radio which took place and went out Friday 29 September 2006; also an article in the Zimbabwean online and paper newspaper, and another radio interview by Violet Gonda on SW Radio Africa.

I had a 20-minute face-to-face surgery session one Friday morning in Kilmaurs with Des Browne, the UK Defence Minister, and the local MP for Kilmarnock Scotland, which is my place of birth and where I spent my first 14 years, and therefore is the closest thing I have to a Constituency. He was quite amicable and positive. My request was that he should put my system in front of Gordon Brown, who was then UK Finance Minister (and is now in 2008 the UK Prime Minister). He said that he could not do that, but that he would try to get the system in front of Shriti Vadera, who was at that time a senior figure in the UK Treasury and Gordon Brown’s right-hand woman on Debt Relief for the 3^rd world.

3 weeks and a lot of effort later, I had a 10 minute phone conversation with Vadera. She was sympathetic but informed me that all her advisers stated that my system was ‘impractical and unworkable’. I responded that all her advisers were wrong, but I did not at that time appreciate the overwhelming level of opposition to my system from the UK Civil Service (‘Whitehall’) on Political and not on Technical grounds… If I had then I would have impressed upon her that although the opposition was ostensibly on technical grounds, in fact it’s sole motivation was political.

The 2 bright spots on the otherwise bleak landscape were Madeleine Williams and Marcus Baltzer. Madeleine was at that time the Head of Elections and Demoracy at USAID. November 2006 I phoned her and she suggested we use my system to run the (ill-fated) Nigeria Elections April 2007. I agreed, but that proposal never came to anything. And a few weeks later she was informed by USAID that she was being transferred to a much lower-level field job in Cairo…

Marcus was a young (27-year-old) Human Rights lawyer from Sweden working in Malawi. A colleague of his had heard the radio broadcast on BBC World Service, and we corresponded quite a bit on the possibility of using the voting system in Malawi. But it appears that the British Embassy sabotaged that opportunity, and Marcus did not have his UNDP Contract renewed.

Thus it seems that people who back this voting system have career reversals…

So beginning of December 2006, 3 months after setting out on what I felt was a sure-fire successful mission, I slunk back to my home and base in Harare Zimbabwe, somewhat puzzled about my lack of success. It was in February 2007 that it became very very apparent what was in fact going on – I found out about the Global Electoral Organisation Conference which was going to take place in Washington DC 27-29 March 2007. I emailed the organizers – IFES (for whom I had worked in Green Zone, Baghdad 3 months in 2005) – asking to present a paper on my voting system. 2 weeks later, after some political emails which I was not meant to see (but which were copied to me by sympathizers), the reply came – there is no space on the Agenda…

So I responded by email requesting that I could come as a delegate/participant. 10 days later the response came – there is no remaining space for delegates. So I phoned Dorin Tudoran of IFES (since fired from that organization, I understand). He explained that they had to turn away a number of other would-be participants, not only me… So I asked him on the phone ‘How many people in total were turned away?’ – he responded ‘We don’t have to tell you that!!’. Such an amateur that he couldn’t even maintain the lie….. It was and is immediately obvious to me that only one person was turned away – and that was me – and the reasons were (again) political in nature.

Eventually I emailed a 3^rd time and suggested that I could send a looping powerpoint presentation which could be hosted on a PC in the exhibition area, without me having to be in Washington or at the Conference. 2 emails and 2 phone calls later there was still radio silence. And as stated earlier, I had worked for these guys (IFES) for 3 months in Baghdad without any complaint from their side – in fact I was the IT Guy in charge of the complete Iraqi Voters Roll and Election Database and in charge of IT side of the 2005 Voters Registration Exercise. Thus it was not like Alex Weir was some guy from the street – an unknown quantity of dubious or unknown quality…

And of course if my system had faults and weaknesses, then what better strategy than to invite me to present and to ensure that the big guns were there who could shoot me down in front of the entire audience?… This tells you that by that time, my voting system had matured into something fireproof and bullet-proof, which the political opponents could no longer discount on technical grounds – they simply had to suppress it by whatever means at their disposal.

June 2007 through December 2007 I did a commercial programming contract for Rio Tinto Iron Ore in Conakry, Guinea, West Africa. During that contract I had quite a bit of flexibility regarding leave schedules, so I did 2 trips to Kigali, Rwanda to try to persuade them to use my voting system for their Parliamentary Elections (2008) and their Presidential Elections (2010). On my second trip in October 2007 they gave me a verbal OK to run the Diaspora Voting for the Parliamentary in 2008/08. I was of course overjoyed, and on my return to Conakry a few days later I penned an email to Des Browne. He had not been taking me or my system seriously, I stated. Now that the Rwandans were taking me seriously he should please now put the voting system outline in front of Gordon Brown. After a few weeks and several reminders, Des replied – ‘I cannot grant your wish - there is nothing further I can do….’ Or words to that effect. I responded – ‘I will be contacting the Media’

So I contacted the Kilmarnock Standard Newspaper – a small print and online newspaper with relatively limited circulation. They were quite positive, and when I phoned their Ian Russell on Friday 30^th November 2007 he informed me that they would almost certainly be publishing one week later – they were simply waiting for a statement from Des Browne in response to the draft article which had been emailed to him. I was overjoyed (again) and joked with colleagues and friends that since I was playing hardball with the UK Minister of Defence they should keep an eye out for a red laser dot on my forehead and inform me if they see one so that I could duck out of the line of fire from the sniper’s bullet. I never imagined that my joke might become some kind of reality.

A very important aside – which was not really picked up or appreciated by Ian Russell – while reviewing the approximately 20 emails which had passed between me and Des Browne during the period October 2006 through November 2007, I came across a gem – in one email, Des Browne used the following wording:

20.11.2006

Thank you for your e-mail. I do not understand your reluctance to have
those who so strongly support your proposal set out the advantages.

I have received, and read carefully, Mike Clegg's e-mail but other than
a general endorsement it does not give me the hard arguments I need.
Please reconsider. Only with arguments can I hope to change the
negative opinion that has developed across Whitehall.

END of QUOTATION

Thus Des Browne hides behind ‘The Negative Opinion that has developed across Whitehall’. Because of that negative opinion, he, an elected Minister, cannot present the system to Gordon Brown, again an elected Minister. What an incredible piece of nonsense!

This effectively states that unelected civil servants are superior to elected Members of Parliament and even to elected Ministers, and can dictate to Ministers what they can and cannot do. Now whether Des Browne believes such nonsense or whether he is lying and using that nonsense as an ostensible reason not to grant my request, either way he has a case to answer. If he believes the nonsense which he uttered then it is very obvious who is running the British Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and it is not the politicians.

The next day – Saturday 1 December 2007 – was at the start quite average – at work at the Rio Tinto Offices at Corniche Sud, Conakry in Guinea. Programming on a Health and Safety Documentation system for Guillaume Olivier, a South African guy working for NOZA and out in Guinea on contract with 2 other NOZA guys. Guillaume was usually stationed upcountry at Canga East, Simandou, where the Iron Ore deposits and the mine were stationed, but he had come down the previous day – we were going to create and finish a system from scratch over the next 2-3 days. But for some reason, I felt ill that day – lacking energy and motivation. I went back to Riviera Royale Hotel for a sleep at lunchtime (something I did quite often, since I often started work at 0530 hrs) but on my return still neither the brain nor the body were working as they should. We left about 1500 hrs and dropped me at my hotel after getting some souvenirs for G – carvings and stuff. I slept again, maybe for 60-90 minutes, and then woke up with a very low body temperature. Strange – I never usually get sick – and if I do it is never like that. I dressed, put on my heavy fleece jacket, and went to the dining area at about 1800 hrs to get some dinner. There was nobody else there – just 20 empty tables outdoors near the pool and some waiters hanging around. I ordered vegetable soup, pizza and a beer. The soup arrived. I started eating it.

Then 2 white guys arrived – walking like military people walk, but in plain clothes – casual dress – both wearing French-style short sleeved shirts with thin vertical stripes – 5-6 colours – a fashion which only the French and/or French Canadians seem to wear. 26-28 years old maybe. They both walked in quite fast – like they were on business, not there for pleasure or leisure. They sat down at the table right next to me, and also on my side of the table. And the funny thing – neither of them made any eye contact whatsoever, although I was watching them all the way in and attempting to make eye contact with them. They ordered Guillux beer, which is a local beer – this to me marked them out as people who were not newcomers to Guinea – not just people passing through in a hurry – such people would order Heineken or Becks – a known international brand. And yet I had never seen these 2 guys before, despite having been in Guinea for 6 months and having socialized at most of the places frequented by foreigners.

Then something happened which aroused my interest even more – the one with the longer hair was talking on his mobile phone (at a distance out of earshot) and was arguing very heatedly with someone for a long time (3-5-7 minutes maybe). It did not seem like an argument with a girlfriend, more like an argument with a business partner, an organizational superior or an organizational subordinate. Whatever the issue was, it was something very serious.

My suspicions were now aroused. I left my table, walked past the 2 guys and made a phone call from my mobile to my wife in Zimbabwe. I told her what was going on and said that if anything happened to me she should know. When I walked past the 2 guys both times again they failed to make eye contact.

I finished my food and signed the bill. I was ready to leave. Then I thought – what the hell – what do I have to lose? – so as I stood up I swiveled round, put my hands on the table of the 2 guys and said to them in English ‘Which company do you guys work for then?’. After a slight pause the longer-haired guy responded ‘Nous sommes Francais’ (we are French). I responded ‘Pour quelle compagnie vous travaillez?’ (which company do you work for ?). No response. Some seconds pass. I add ‘Vous etes tourists?’ (You are tourists? – this is a joke or let us say a sarcastic comment, since Guinea is a country where there are literally zero tourists). Some seconds pass again – I am looking at them and making it obvious that I will not depart without some kind of sensible reply. Eventually the longer-haired guy says ‘Nous travaillons pour l’Embassade Francais’ (we work for the French Embassy). I hadn’t expected that reply. I draw in a breath and leave their table. By that time it is dark, and Oliver Baboujian, the Hotel Manager, is alone about 4 tables away, near the pool. I walk over to him and say – ‘Oliver – see those 2 guys at that table – they work for French Embassy and are behaving quite strangely. If I am found dead tonight or tomorrow those are the guys who did it’. ‘Are you in some kind of trouble Alex?’.. ‘It seems so, Oliver. I am disappearing for a few days…’. I left, phoned my wife again from hotel reception, told her I was going underground for a few days and not to worry, switched off my phone so as not to be trackable, and took a taxi to the Novotel – where other Rio Tinto people were, and especially my friend G. I got the taxi driver to switch off his phone also and warned him about the 2 guys I had seen and talked to, in case they tried to interrogated him or worse in the days ahead. I did not even go back to my hotel room to collect anything, since that would be a very predictable place to be trapped and killed, either inside or outside.

So what explains the strange behaviour of these 2 guys? I think within maybe 24 hours I had worked it out – they were probably sent to kill the guy who had my mobile phone number about his person - +224 646 788 41. They were not given an identifying photo, just the phone number, which was in my pocket as I sat at the hotel restaurant. Since the French Embassy have access to the mobile phone system and to mobile phone tracking technology, their 2 operatives had to get close to me to be sure they had the right guy. Thus they sat so close to me although there were 20 empty tables. Because they were going to kill me, they preferred not to make eye contact, in case their look gave anything away, and/or in case they felt sympathy for me. Maybe they were not told it was a relatively old (58) white guy they were doing to kill, who happened to be visibly ill at that point in time (you have to be ill to wear a heavy fleece jacket when the temperature is 32 Centigrade). So my guess is that the intelligent one of the 2 requested his control to send a photo over the phone, to verify the identity of the target. And the control refused, saying either they didn’t have a photo or they were not going to send one. Just kill the guy! No! This guy is old and sick - maybe he swapped phones with the guy you want killed - send over a photo! If the photo matches then we kill him – no problem! We are not going to do that! Then we don’t kill him! What has he done anyway?! Just kill him! Obey orders! And so on…. Then when I effectively gave them a chance to blow their cover, after some 20 or more seconds and a few interchanges, he did so. By doing this he took his team out of the action. Later in December, the French Ambassador Harare’s reactions were interesting: ‘Maybe they were sent to scare or intimidate you – that is often done’. My response – ‘If they scared the wrong guy then no big deal – the argument on the phone was about more than scaring’. The Ambassador’s second response – ‘How did you know these 2 guys were from the French Embassy?’ ‘They told me so’. He was shocked – ‘That was MOST unprofessional!’ I had also been surprised – I had expected some kind of lie – like ‘we are from Orange Telecom’ or something like that – I was actually very surprised when they stated they were from the Embassy. This bolsters my theory that the guy was deliberately blowing their cover because he was not happy with the hit – he felt that something was wrong. (Of course something WAS wrong – they had been sent on a Political Assassination of an innocent guy whose only crime was to play hardball politics with the British Minister of Defence over a voting system which would change the Geopolitics of the world, and in particular which would effect a change in the balance of power away from the West and China and towards the Third World).

Back to that evening – I arrive at Novotel by taxi, and check at the desk for the room number of G – they take about 3 minutes to find his room number. I get into the lift, and as the door is closing, a white guy walks in with a white towel over his arm, draped like a waiter. I don’t even think about it – I get out quickly without saying anything and take the stairs. There are no white waiters at Novotel or even in the whole of Guinea, and his dress was casual apart from the strange way the towel was draped over his arm. I am guessing that under the towel was a knife or a gun. Since I imagined that my trip from Riviera to Novotel had not been tracked, I didn’t think much about it at the time – only later – it may just have been another botched attempt.

G wasn’t in his room but I found him and 3 of his South African buddies at the restaurant/bar. I joined them without eating, and told G what had happened so far (missing out the waiter in the lift). He became very serious. ‘I used to be in the South African Special Forces, and also I did UN Protection Duty for VIPs in Burundi. I know how these things work. It seems to me that the 2 French Embassy guys were there to kill you. And just because you escaped do not think you are safe – they or other teams will try again and again for the next 1-2 weeks. Probably after that, if you survive, it will die down again. You have to leave Guinea tonight or tomorrow and you cannot fly out – they will be watching the airport. And you cannot go to Europe – they will get you anywhere in EU, even in the UK. In fact it is much better I don’t know where you are going – then if I am asked or interrogated I cannot tell anything. By the way – is the battery still inside your phone?’. ‘Yes – but the phone is switched off’ I replied. ‘Get the battery out also – it still gives off a tracking signal with the battery in!’. You learn something every day….

The cell-phone tracking thing may also explain the white waiter in the lift – the French Embassy could have been tracking me the whole way from the Riviera to the Novotel, even though my phone was switched off. It makes sense of course to have a backup team or individual, in case the main team fails or their cover is blown.

G gave me a rucksack, toothpaste, socks, tee-shirt, soap and a few other items. I dozed fitfully for some hours and left Novotel about 0400 hrs Sunday 2 December 2007. I bought a radio and a torch when shops had opened, and was in Sierra Leone, in Freetown the capital, before 0900 hrs the next morning – a distance of about 200 kilometres and across an international frontier. Strangely enough, G got a considerable amount of flack for assisting me – from NOZA and from Rio Tinto – it seems that British Government and/or French Embassy Conakry exerted considerable pressure on either or both these companies to harass him.

Since Europe was out of bounds and traveling in the direction of Zimbabwe would maybe have been a bit predictable (anyway, I wanted to confront the scoundrels who were behind these attempts – and that I felt meant traveling to UK – when the situation had calmed down a bit), I reckoned I should be heading for an Arab country – where I also feel quite at home (like I do in Africa). Because the Lebanese traders are the Indians of West Africa, I reckoned there would be good flight links to Beirut. I was correct. I paid cash for the ticket, but of course my name and probably also my passport number went into the computer.

2 hours later I was on the ferry from Freetown to the Island where Lungi Airport is. There was one character who was out of profile – a white guy with sandals and a rucksack. He was at the airport too a bit later, looking intently through his own passport for a long time. I guess from that that the passport was a false one. So I tackled him. ‘Who do you work for?’ ‘Tigo Telecom – I am a software guy’ And he was French. But then he said something after that which made me think he was not a software guy. But I didn’t want to be paranoid, so I discounted my hunch. I didn’t see him on the plane or on any of the connections, so I guess maybe he was a watcher whose task was just to ensure that I got on the plane I had booked. Or maybe he was just a strangely-behaving innocent – these people do exist, you know.

24 hours later I arrived in Beirut by plane. Immigration suggested I stay at Talala Hotel, near the Corniche I think. A pleasant place, very inexpensive. I checked in and they recommended Le Chef restaurant quite nearby. 1500 hrs I was sitting there enjoying some decent food when 2 really criminal-looking guys walked in. They ordered with undue haste, in French, but from what I could gather they were not regulars. They were short in height with shaven haircuts. I didn’t think much about them but observed them, since they were the most interesting people in the restaurant. Their phone rang, and one of them walked out of the resto before answering. Then he walked back in and through to the back area of the resto to converse. I watched the other in a wall mirror. He didn’t see me watching I guess, because he gave me a very long (4-second) and intense and malevolent stare. Shit, I thought – this could be more of the Conakry stuff. Ok – no panic. Finished or nearly finished my food, then called over to the waiter in French – ‘Great meal. I am coming back here this evening to eat again!’. I.e. bad guys – kill me this evening after dark – much easier and safer for you to get away. I paid and walked out of the resto, 10 metres down the street, and into a communal taxi with 2 women already inside. After they had been dropped at their destinations, I discussed possibilities with the taxi driver. Eventually, it became clear that I should be heading into Syria, which is pretty much like Eastern Europe or Russia before the fall of communism – i.e. a closely observed state where it is difficult or impossible for Western Intelligence to operate.

So I took a bus from Beirut to Aleppo – I deliberately avoided Damascus, since that is the capital city, with diplomats, foreigners and possibly spies. We got in at midnight, and I checked into the Baron Hotel, as recommended by the immigration guys at the Lebanon/Syria Border. Next morning I made 2 mistakes – I used my Visa card in an ATM to get cash at 0750 hrs and I used the internet in a cybercafe at 0810 hrs. At 1400 hrs later the same day, a strange guy appeared in the same cybercafe, saying, in English in a loud voice ‘Hey – you guys got Skype?’ Some minutes later – when he thinks I cannot see him - he gives me the same long intense and bad stare which the hoodlum in Le Chef in Beirut had given me one day earlier. I told the cybercafe attendant that I was going downstairs for a coffee but in fact I took a taxi to the Mubarrat (secret police) Headquarters and told them what was going on (my enemy’s enemy is my friend – an old Arab saying). Later about 1900 hrs the same day I was back in the same cybercafe, and the same guy walked in 5 minutes later, with an Australian girl colleague. They worked as Tour Guides it transpired, and stayed also at Le Baron Hotel. He made a very long mobile phone call to London and chatted it seemed about nothing of any consequence. When he had finished I tapped him from behind on the shoulder. ‘I am here for 2-3 days and would like to do a tour. Do you have a business card?’ ‘No’ he replied, without turning round. One-2-3 seconds passed in silence. ‘Do you have a web address then?’ I said. He wrote on a small piece of squared paper – like mainland Europeans use - www.kumuka.com and handed the paper to me without a word – and again without turning round - very untypical behaviour for a tour guide. I checked the website – it seemed legitimate – an anglo-australian operation. I used their contactus email form to ask ‘Do you have any tour guides currently in Syria? If so in Aleppo? If so, staying at le Baron Hotel? If so then please their names?’ I am still waiting for any response 5 months later, which makes me think www.kumuka.com are fishy. Anyway, I went back to the Mubarrat HQ and communicated that to my contacts there, but they were still complacent and were maintaining that no foreign intelligence service can operate inside Syria. I told them I no longer had any confidence in them. That didn’t seem to go down so well. The 2 kumuka ‘tour guides’ left the cybercafe about 5 minutes after I tackled the guy – I guess you could say their cover had been blown… Really – such amateurs… More like Johnny English than James Bond. The guy looked half English half Arabic, both by features and by skin colour.

So – by their amateurishness, I had no real fear that such an idiot team could harm me, so I went back to the Baron Hotel. The male tour guide was on one of his interminable mobile phone conversations, so my plan to engage him in discussion over a drink never materialized. Instead I mixed with some photographers and artists – German, French, Belgian and Latvian – who were in Aleppo for some arts festival. We had a good time and consumed some beers and whiskies. With the very visible Mubarrat guy(s) at the bar, I felt quite safe.

About midnight we wound up. The others it transpired did not stay at the Baron – they were in a small cheap hotel nearby. I considered – although the strangely-behaving amateurs seemed to be no real threat of any kind, who knows, maybe their assassination skills were better than their surveillance and deception skills?… So I went with the artists to their hotel. They had space and I had money, but my passport was still at Baron’s reception - that is how they operate. So I went back alone. To get my passport I had to check out, which I did reluctantly. I was standing at reception ready to walk out the door when a very very tall white guy walked in. The Reception guy said ‘Good evening Danish gentleman!’. So I guess he had checked in earlier, and had a Danish passport. I didn’t think anything of him, but decided to have some fun – I speak a smattering of Danish. ‘Voor dang gode, skal du caffe?’ (good day – would you like a coffee ?). He replied ‘Ah – an Englishman who speaks Danish’, took his key and climbed the stairs. Luckily when I have consumed some alcohol my brain works slower, otherwise I might have confronted him immediately – and said ‘My friend – you are not Danish!’. Several things were out of profile – firstly – how did he know I was British? – I did not speak English in front of him. I did not dress like a Brit. My haircut at that time was not typically British – it was more German, Swiss or Austrian. Secondly – you address a Dane in Danish and he will usually reply in Danish – such is their love of their language – so he would have retorted ‘Er du Dansker?’ (are you Danish?) or he could have bamboozled me with some colloquial Danish which would have left me reeling. So – once I worked out that this Dane was in fact a fake, I said to the receptionist – ‘You Mubarrat – you are such amateurs – you have at this hotel a tour guide who doesn’t sell tours and now a Danish passport-holder who doesn’t speak Danish. You have a serious problem!’ ‘What do you advise?’ he asked. ‘Put one of your people in my room with a gun – and he must stay awake all night and wait to see what happens. Or you can arrest both these guys and question them and see what you find. Anyway, I have no more confidence in Mubarrat – I am leaving, and I don’t tell you where I am going.’ I went to another small hotel, where no whites ever go, and stayed inside there for 2 days.

Time for a recapitulation. What does all this mean? Surely all the evidence is circumstantial? Yes – it is, but there is so much circumstantial evidence that it starts to make a convincing case. 3 (or 4, if you include the white waiter at Novotel Conakry) incidents in 3 separate global locations. Strange goings on in Syria, a country where it is expensive, difficult and risky for foreign intelligence to operate and to conduct a hit. Of course the apparent trigger for the assassination attempts – a relatively innocuous article about the UK Defence Minister – does not seem to be sufficient reason to kill someone, however irritating that person or that person’s actions or statements may be. But then people in power develop strange ideas of their own importance and their own immunity from normal legal and democratic processes. In particular, whoever actually runs the British Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq probably orders at least one assassination (political or otherwise) each month. Maybe Des Browne merely mentioned (deliberately or accidentally) to one of his aides that ‘Alex Weir is becoming a nuisance’ – that is fairly standard intelligence-speak for ‘Eliminate Alex Weir’, and maybe MI6 (Britain’s foreign intelligence service) went off to do the job without explicitly informing Des Browne or getting his signature. Such systems are used to facilitate ‘Plausible Denial’.

My theory behind the Riviera/Conakry incident I explained above – a hit instructed on a mobile phone number with no corroborating photo ID, which the hit-man questioned, and ultimately blew his own cover.

The Beirut incident was too short to form any conclusions – only the (by now classic) 4-second-stare plus the obvious criminality of the team of 2 alerted me.

The Aleppo setup was slightly different – instead of a 2 man team (brains/communicator plus killer) - they had effectively a reconnaissance team (the 2 tour guides plus 1 or maybe more others) and also a separate hit team – I am speculating here that the very tall ‘Dane’ was the hit man. Now as I state above, operating a hit inside Syria is a risky and expensive operation. To be the target of such an apparent hit attempt is very flattering. The recce team probably came in from Beirut or from Damascus., by road The hit man possibly came in from as far away as Dubai, Frankfurt or London, through Damascus.

Here is another consideration – why were the French used in Conakry and not a British team? 2 possible reasons – British embassy is really in Conakry only a consulate, therefore they probably have zero hit-men on their staff. Thus they have to subcontract to some other friendly agency – French, USA, Israeli, German or something. French are best in Guinea since they control everything, including the police and army. Therefore easiest to dispose of the body and/or avoid any awkward questions. I am guessing that the team in Beirut was also French or French-controlled. But I think the team in Aleppo was directly controlled by MI6/British Intelligence. And the hit-man – by his height and accent, could well have been Estonian (his accent was reasonably close to Danish although he apparently could not speak or understand Danish – and Estonians are famously tall). I guess MI6 use a variety of nationalities and passports apart from British. It is also very possible that when MI6 have to kill a Brit then whenever possible they use a reciprocal arrangement with another western intelligence service. Then when they are asked occasionally in the UK Parliament ‘How many British citizens were killed by MI6 over the last year/10 years?’ then they can (semi-) truthfully reply – ‘None!’.

So – after lying low some days in Aleppo, I decided to go to UK to try to confront the perpetrators of these attempts on my life. I took a bus to Damascus and flew to London, arriving Monday morning 0600 hrs 10 December 2007, 9 days after the merry-go-round had started, and 3 days after the fairly innocuous story was published in the Kilmarnock Standard newspaper (print and online). I went to the Independent newspaper with my story, but they seemed to have been warned off touching it. Same with the Conservative Party. The same night I took a National Express coach to Edinburgh overnight. At Victoria Coach Station before departure a very clumsy and amateur observation exercise by one guy. I ‘made’ him very quickly – once again British Intelligence’s Johnny English syndrome. Then on the bus a young black guy wearing police boots gets on at Golders Green and forces his way into the seat diagonally behind me. Very clumsy and very comical. And the Arabic/Islamic guy sitting next to him seems like he wants to tell me something while we are stopped some hours later in the middle of the night at a service station near Leeds. But he never gets back on the bus, or if he does he is sitting somewhere totally different. Throughout my 7 days in the UK on that trip, that is the apparent sum of visible surveillance, and there were no menacing characters (only comical amateurs). This ties in with the remit that MI6 are not permitted to operate inside the UK – that is left to MI5.

Friday 14 December 1400 hrs I try to report to Kilmarnock Police in Scotland the details of the assassination attempts. At the beginning they seem interested, but as soon as they discover that Des Browne may be involved they change their tune – ‘You must take this up with the authorities in Conakry, Beirut and Aleppo’ they say ‘It is out of our jurisdiction’. Despite saying at the start that such a case was inside their jurisdiction…. 2 young guys from Special Branch from Pitt Street Police Station Glasgow come to the house of my 75 year old sick uncle in Kilmarnock and intimidate and stress him (and me at the same time of course). I move to a hotel in Kilmarnock for that night, and they visit me again there. They are becoming less hostile and are warming to me a little. I complain that my statement was never taken in the end – they promise to enter something in the security log, so that there is some record of what was going on.

The company for whom I was working in Guinea, Rio Tinto, were unseemingly hasty in wishing to terminate my services – they booked me business class London Amsterdam Nairobi on Monday 17 December and then Nairobi Harare on Wednesday 19 December. I book a side trip to Kigali at the last minute in order to confirm to the CNE Rwanda that I was still on board with running their diaspora voting exercise using my voting system.

On the KLM flight Amsterdam to Nairobi there was something suspicious but which could not be proven – fortunately before sleeping on that day flight I informed the Head Purser that there were strange goings-on which were connected to the newspaper article - which I showed him. I told him that if I died on the flight that everyone near me should be a suspect and that my death would not be from natural causes. I was in the upper-class area, and there was only one other passenger near me – sitting opposite me on the same row - a guy to whom I did not speak at all. A small Belgian or French-looking guy with very developed upper body strength – i.e. he was not your typical flabby middle-aged easy-living expense-account business class type. And he folded his clothes in his hand luggage towards the end of the flight the way a military person would fold them. There was no-one in front of us in that area, and some other guys at the back, but at least one completely empty row behind me and this military guy. OK – mildly suspicious, nothing I can prove. I should have engaged him in conversation – then something out of profile may have appeared. Hindsight is 20-20…

The overnight Monday at Nairobi airport was uneventful and I did my business smartly in Kigali on the Tuesday morning. From about 1300 hrs I was in the departure lounge of Kigali airport, along with a number of people who were catching the 1830 hrs to Nairobi, which in fact had been delayed from 1230 scheduled time. I was drinking Black Label whisky and beer with some interesting characters from DRC Congo (they were paying). For some reason I feel that something is going on – I pick on 2 guys who look like aid workers, and ask them who they work for (in English or French, I forget which) – ‘Ah we work for a French NGO which you wont have heard of’ one says. I am immediately suspicious, I swear at them and warn them not to f*** with me. I follow them out of the lounge into the departure seating area and repeat my warning, again with swearwords built in. Then I return to the bar area. 3 minutes later I revisit them from behind and observe them for some minutes. They are sitting perfectly normally, not conversing with each other. If it had been me, and I was innocent, then I would be discussing with the other guy who the hell the crazy guy was, what did he imagine we were doing etc etc.. But from them – total calm – this confirmed to me that they were fakes of some kind.

5 or 10 minutes later, I had a feeling about 3 guys sitting at the bar. I go over there and start with the guy at the end of the bar. ‘Which company do you work for?’. ‘United Nations’. ‘Oh – those useless people!’ He is an American. Then I tackle the other 2 guys, who seem to be together. ‘We work for a private French company which you won’t have heard of…’ Whao! The same wording again as the 2 fake NGO guys! I look at the 3 guys to see if I am just being paranoid or if there are any more clues that these 3 are not what they seem. Then I note that all 3 of them are drinking tea. It is 1800 hrs in the late afternoon. Their flight has been delayed 5 hours, and will take off in the next 30-60 minutes for Nairobi. And they are drinking – wait for it – tea – not beer, not spirits – tea. If it had been one or two drinking tea – no problem. But all 3? Strange. And they are sitting at the bar, not at one of the tables…. OK – time to test them out – I say to the barmaid in French in a loud voice, less than 1 metre from the 3 guys – ‘Ces trois saligauds pedes boivent du the a 6 heures du soir!’ (These 3 homosexual f***ers are drinking tea at 6 in the afternoon). None of the 3 react – at least 2 of them – the French guys – understood and heard perfectly what I had just said. This lack of reaction confirms to me that something was going on. But again between the 2 fake NGO guys and the 3 other fakes at the bar, I don’t know if they were there to observe me or maybe to observe someone much more interesting – maybe even the DRC guys I was drinking with.

Anyway, when the plane landed about 2000 hrs in Nairobi I made sure I was almost first off the plane. I had only hand luggage. By a combination of skill and luck I entered Kenya without passing through Immigration, so within minutes of landing I was in a taxi heading for Nairobi City. And during my illegal transit through the airport there was at one stage a helper waving me towards a door which facilitated my exit. I never found out to this day who that helper was and/or whom he worked for. Maybe he was there to help someone else, and I was literally in the right place at the right time? That night I stayed in Nairobi without registering at any hotel, just in case… So maybe there had been a reception party of some kind waiting for me at the airport – connected to the 5 fakes at Kigali Airport - who knows?…

Next day (Wednesday 19 December) I had to explain to the Kenyan Immigration staff at the airport what had happened the evening before, because I had no entry stamp in my passport. I explained to them some of the story from 1 December onwards. They were very kind and helpful. ‘Do you work or did you work for an Intelligence Service?’ ‘Never’ I replied.

Wednesday morning - I am back at the airport in the business lounge. 2 white guys walk in – Brits. They want to sit in the same lounge area as me but an Egyptian family are hogging the space. I join them at their table to chat. They work for Peak Investments – a seemingly shadowy Manchester-based organization which is staffed by ex-military types and is (supposedly) concerned with making investments in Africa and other 3^rd world regions. I regale them with some of my story so far. They are puzzled by the French being so amateur and/or ethical – ‘The French hitmen are usually very effective’ they assure me. ‘I could have been sent here to poison you’, the younger one informs me. ‘That is why I took my beer with me when I went over to fetch my luggage’ I reply. ‘We are glad that we are not on the same plane as you this morning’, they tell me. ‘You mean that sometimes intelligence guys bring down a plane to get one person?’ I ask. They give me a knowing look. The older one gets quite aggressive towards me at one point in the conversation, but the younger one keeps his cool throughout. I tell them – ‘Pass on the message – whoever kills me will never sleep again..’

Ok – the whole trip back down from London to Harare on 17 through 19 December is quite low key, especially when compared with the activity Conakry, Beirut and Aleppo 1 through 5 December, but it does indicate that something may still have been going on (and again maybe not – the evidence – what there is – was much flimsier then the original 5 days – maybe a sign that the watchers and killers were getting more professional at not getting spotted, if equally ineffective in getting the job done). If necessary we discount these happenings 17-19 December and concentrate on the original evidence.

The Conakry stuff is very interesting, since 2 staff from the French Embassy are involved. The Beirut stuff is too lacking in evidence to be of any real interest. The Syria stuff is interesting, since real or fake UK (?), Australian and Danish passports were used and are recorded at the Baron Hotel (and at borders and/or airports). And to mount any operation in Syria means that the target must be quite important, since there are risks to operations inside Syria which are not present in other more normal countries.

After my return to Harare 19 December 2007 I approached the French Ambassador there. He initially said ‘This whole thing sounds like a cartoon, like a movie!’. I agreed. Then he said – ‘Maybe the 2 guys from the French Embassy Conakry were there just to frighten you? ‘. ‘I don’t think so’, I said – ‘ why did they argue so heatedly over the phone about just scaring someone?’ On our second or third conversation, when I explained the urgency for me of knowing for sure was it the British who had instigated the hit, he looked me in the eye and said ‘ I think you have to speak to your Embassy’ in a knowing way. So I guess he had been in touch with Paris and/or Conakry, and had at least some basic minimal information about what had been going on.

The British Embassy Harare were worse than useless. Valerie Brownridge, the acting ambassador, told me – ‘The French never ever do that kind of thing!’ Ambassador Pocock on his return from leave informed me that he would not request information from the French Embassy Conakry about who had instigated the hit (of course he wouldn’t, because he knew already who did – the British Government and/or British Intelligence). Then he refused to put in writing for me what he had just stated. Before I know it, the FCO in London are phoning my GP sister in the UK to inform her that I am manic depressive (bi-polar is the modern politically-correct term).

I traveled back to the UK in January 2008, and on 1 February I requested and was granted about 20 minutes with Des Browne at his surgery in Stewarton. He denied all knowledge of any assassination attempts (which is pretty stupid of him, since I had communicated the story at the end of December 2007 to the British Embassy Harare – therefore he must have been informed). So at his request I stated to him most or all of the detail of the 3 attempts in Conakry, Beirut and Aleppo. At the end of the account of Conakry, he stated ‘But that is just circumstantial evidence!’ ‘Of course it is’, I replied ‘but there is so much circumstantial evidence that when you take the 3 cases together they form a case’. He pretty much shut up after that. It was actually quite comical – while I was narrating the Beirut incident, I noticed that he was sitting with arms akimbo – in classic body-language defensive mode. So I said to him ‘Des – why are you being so defensive? You have no reason to be?’ He replied ‘Defensive – what do you mean?’. When I explained the body language interpretation he blustered ‘I am sitting like that because it is comfortable!’ – but he was not convincing. At the end of our session, I asked him just to instruct MI6 to stop trying to assassinate me. He did by the way confirm that as MOD he was the minister (supposedly) in charge of MI6, and that he dealt with them on a daily basis – I was not exactly sure of that until then.

What did I conclude from the session with Des Browne? There was guilt there, but not 100% guilt it seemed to me (Of course politicians get very used to lying and to partial truths). Therefore maybe MI6 or whoever were off on their own vibrations performing a hit of which Des Browne was only partly aware or had some suspicion may be carried out; or again he may well be 100% guilty but is just a good actor.

So – where from here? – it is now May 2008, and some appreciable water has flowed under the bridge. The Diaspora voting exercise in Rwanda has been shelved for 2008 – it may take place for 2010. The decision was taken at a high level of Rwandese Government and/or the CNE (Electoral Commission). My suspicions point to interference/influence by the International Community (in the shape of UNDP and DFID), but also the Rwandans and the CNE were not very organized with respect to such a vote, regardless of whatever system they might have used, so who knows?

If the Scottish Police decide they have enough political courage to investigate British Intelligence and Des Browne, then we have some starting points for such an investigation – namely Conakry and Aleppo. But Scottish Police rolled over very easily 14 December 2007, so can one expect anything different now? Failing action by Scottish police, I could mount a private investigation and a private (civil) prosecution.

What is the principal at stake here? It is whether the British Government, Civil Service and/or British Intelligence should be allowed to get away with a political assassination or an attempted political assassination on a British Citizen who is innocent of any crime and who is not a terrorist or linked to terrorists? In this case, a British Citizen who has invented a voting system which will almost certainly change global Geopolitics and the International Balance of Power if and when it is implemented. In view of recent electoral fiascos in Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe, it would seem that such a voting system is something very necessary. If it would also resolve the Burma problem, that would be a plus. The fact that the political assassination failed due to a lot of incompetence and due to ethical behaviour by one of the hit-men should not be a mitigating factor in deciding whether to prosecute or in deciding the sentence(s) if found guilty.

Mr Alex Weir

Harare

Zimbabwe

http://www.cd3wd.com/contactus/

13 May 2008

PS – although I hope this account is not too dry and boring, it is the unembellished account – the embellished one should be much more fun to read. Contact me if you want that version.

Link to the Kilmarnock Standard online article:

http://icayrshire.icnetwork.co.uk/kilmarnockstandard/news/tm_method=full%26objectid=20211556%26siteid=73592-name_page.html

I reproduce the article below, in case the link above for any reason (including archiving) becomes inoperational…. There are some errors, inaccuracies and untruths below, but I leave them unchallenged, since in the greater picture, they are relatively unimportant.

Article

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Kilmaurs man’s voting system stalled by government experts

Dec 6 2007

By Ian Russell

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A FREELANCE software developer, originally from Kilmaurs, but currently on assignment in Conakry, Guinea, is at loggerheads with MP Des Browne over what he claims is a low cost, tamper-proof, electronic voting system for third world countries.

Alex Weir 58, who was a pupil of both Stewarton Academy and Kilmarnock Academy, is working for Rio Tinto Iron Ore in West Africa on a project to create the mine which will extract the world's largest iron ore deposit.

He was originally a mechanical engineer for Rolls Royce in Hillington; then a mechanical/agricultural engineer in Tanzania; a mechanical engineer in Saudi Arabia; and a machine tool engineer in London.

Story continues

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For the past year he has been trying to enlist Kilmarnock and Loudoun MP Des Browne’s support for ‘his’ voting system with a view to having it taken forward to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The prime minister was apparently impressed with Mr Weir’s work in the early 70s when he ran the Edinburgh University third world film festival. At that time Gordon Brown was rector/student union president at the city university.

A married man with two sons, Alex Weir is well-known in Kilmarnock.

His great uncle ran 'Weirs of Kilmarnock', the clothing store in Portland Street, and Alex, brought up on Tourhill Farm, Kilmaurs, still has many relatives in the area.

He went to see Des Browne at one of the MP’s local surgeries in Kilmaurs Community Centre in October last year and since then has been corresponding via e-mail in a, so far, vain bid to have the electoral system he endorses put before Gordon Brown.

Alex said this week: “Des Browne states that he has to overcome the political resistance to the concept that third world populations should be able to peacefully effect regime change without war, insurrection, rebellion, bombings, assassinations, civil disruption, refugee movements etc etc etc..

“But no — it is precisely because politicians are elected and civil servants are unelected that politicians sometimes have to direct, redirect, or actively negate or oppose civil servants.

“When Gordon Brown sees the system, the concept and the arguments before him, there is a very good chance he will go for it.

“That is precisely what Whitehall does NOT want, and they have cast a spell over the otherwise very impressive Des Browne.”

According to the MP, his understanding is that the Treasury, DFID and the FCO have all been in touch with Alex Weir to advise him that, in their view, the system is not workable.

But Mr Muir says he has a commitment from the Rwanda IEC to use his system for the diaspora voting in/outside Rwanda 2008/09 — that will be 800,000 voters out of a total of approximately five million.

He claims also to have ‘great interest’ from Kenya ECK and from South Africa ECZA in the system.

But a recent response from Des Browne suggests he won’t be coming onboard.

States the MP in a reply to Mr Weir: “Unfortunately, I feel that I have done everything that I can to assist you in relation to this matter and there really is nothing further I can suggest that will be of assistance to you now.”

And in a detailed reply to the Standard enquiry this week the MP said: “Alex Weir attended a constituency surgery in October, 2006 having misled me about his address to obtain an appointment.

“The Kilmarnock address he gave was his uncle’s. Alex Weir lives and works in Africa.

“He is a businessman from Zimbabwe who appears to live mostly in Nairobi having married a local woman there some 13 years ago, according to his website. He does not live in Kilmarnock and is not a constituent.

“He wanted to discuss a business proposal for what he described as a ‘low-cost tamper-proof electronic voting system for the third world’ called SEEV. His objective was to meet with then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, explain this voting system and enlist his support for it. Effectively, he wanted UK government approval for his system to persuade others to buy into it.

“In October 2006 I arranged for him to speak with a senior treasury official, an economic adviser with expertise in third world and development issues. “Their analysis of the SEEV system was that it was neither sensible nor workable. The costs of further investigation weren’t justified.

“DFID and the FCO agreed with that analysis.

“Clearly unhappy Mr Weir persisted in e-mailing me from Africa.

“He claimed to have a list of endorsers who had assessed and approved the system.

“I asked him to have them write to me setting out simply why they were so impressed with this system and exactly what they intended to do with it.

“Such arguments might help persuade government officials to reconsider.

“He agreed to consider this telling me my offer was ‘…extremely positive and magnanimous…’.

“I received ONE e-mail from a Canadian QC, Michael Clegg, in very general terms simply saying that it was a novel idea worth constructive evaluation.

“Mr Weir declined to contact the other six people he had previously named.

“I couldn’t understand his reluctance to ask people who were apparently so strongly in support of SEEV set out the advantages of it to me.

“I explained that the one response I had received was insubstantial, failing to provide the necessary arguments. He agreed to reconsider but I heard nothing more from anyone.

“Mr Weir e-mailed in April, 2007 again demanding I bring his proposal to Gordon Brown’s personal attention.

“I repeated my request for endorsers to provide arguments in support of the SEEV system as without hard facts there could be no progress.

“By e-mail from Nairobi, he said he understood my point, yet still failed to provide evidence from supporters.

“Following his most recent demands, I told him I had done all I could and could suggest nothing more. His response was to threaten to communicate my decision to the media.

“Hence, his contact with the Kilmarnock Standard."

***All Rights Reserved – Alex Weir 2008 ***