Washington, D.C. -  

n inconclusive report based on the ongoing investigation into a chain of E-Mails linking several senior Liberian government officials to high crimes, corruption and bribery, obtained by FrontPageAfrica suggests that Mr. Estrada Bernard, an in-law to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and currently an Advisor on legal and security matters may be linked to a payment of $US600,000 from the telecommunications giant, Cellcom. Bernard also sits on the Board of Directors of the International Bank in Monrovia. Cellcom is owned by Yoram Cohen, head of the Liberian International Shipping Registry(LISCR) based in Vienna, Virginia-USA.

Supporting Documents: James Mintz Group Report Dunn Report

INCONCLUSIVE FIND

Based on the computers examined of the prime players involved in the Knuckles-Gate II saga, the Washington, D.C.-based Mintz Group which was hired and paid by the Executive Branch for the investigation came up with the following findings:   1. We did not find evidence of the published emails on any of these five computer hard drives. This does not definitively mean that these emails do not exist; however they were not identified during the course of this forensic analysis. 2. There is no evidence to suggest that any of the five individuals deleted significant data prior to forensic imaging of their hard drives. 3. Three emails were found on Knuckles’ computer (Target 4) that contain sentences similar to the text contained in emails published by Front Page Africa. The emails identified through the investigation of Target 4’s hard drive had slightly different variations in sentence structure, dates and language This would suggest potential manipulation of the text as published by FPA. EDITOR’S NOTE: The report in FrontPageAfrica’s possession is not the final report of the Dunn Commission but the report of the Mintz Group submitted to the Dunn Commission - based on its probe of the controversy. It is not clear whether the final report will ever be made public despite an earlier pledge by Dunn to FPA. Dunn now says it is left with Sirleaf to decide. Also, FPA has been so far unable to obtained documents attached to the inconclusive findings in its possession.   The second part of the Mintz Group report will be posted shortly.

The latest revelation in the ongoing Knuckles-Gate II saga comes from a portion of the report done by the Washington-Based Jim Mintz Group which appears at best inconclusive while raising more questions than answers amid calls by the Mintz Group for a further probe into the $US600,000 payment tied to Bernard.

The revelation comes only a day after the head of the probe commission Professor Elwood Dunn submitted his findings of the three-month probe to Sirleaf. Dunn declined an FPA request to obtain a copy of his findings, stating instead that all is now left with President Sirleaf to act on his findings. The report obtained by FPA covers the portion of the probe conducted by the Mintz Group. The report is in two parts: A 23-pager and another an 18-page document.

"Well it is premature and inappropriate to say this because there is a gentle people understanding and all of us involve agreed that we will proceed in a particular manner and we proceeded, did the work and submitted the report to the president and cannot say anything about that”, Professor Dunn. On whether he believes the commission report will be implemented to the fullest by the President, Professor Dunn said it will be preposterous to say that the report will be implemented to the fullest.

Prime suspects probed, computers examined

A team of investigators from the JMG traveled to Monrovia between November 2 and November 8, 2008, working under the auspices of the Dunn Commission which was hired to probe the scandal. According to JMG, six interviews were conducted (Willis Knuckles, Binyah Kesselly, Estrada Bernard, Medina Wesseh, Tom Jeffreys, Philip Banks) and five forensic images were gathered from parties involved in the investigation. The objectives of JMG’s fieldwork were to among other things, assess the scope of the collection to ensure relevant evidence was collected; participate in subject interviews to address matters of digital evidence; Perform forensic imaging of any media presented or gathered by the Committee; provide assistance to pursue other investigative leads in relation to email accounts

JMG reports that it examined the hard drives collected from the parties in the investigation. “Two of the hard drives examined were owned or used substantially by Willis D. Knuckles, the central figure in the e-mail exchanges posted to the news outlet known as Front Page Africa.”

Knuckles is a former Minister of Public Works and Minister for State for Presidential Affairs. Currently an advisor to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and board member of Cellcom. Knuckles’ daughter, Hawa, proprietor of a restaurant at 80 Broad Street in Monrovia, was also interviewed during the JMG’s Monrovia tour.

For example, the group reports that emails examined were fragments, which indicated that the original emails were deleted by the user. JMG had to piece together some of the fragments in order to make a conclusion. There is no indication that they asked the targets for the original emails or why they were deleted.

Furthermore, reference on one of the fragments from Estrada Bernard's computer indicated a 600,000 dollars wired from Cellcom as "prepayment on my...." (missing fragment). This fragment was produced on or around Tuesday, August 26, 20. However, the last two digits of the year missing from the fragment.

The group also stated that it was unable to examine a laptop belonging to Estrada Bernard which he indicated was in New York; they were similarly unable to examine a laptop belonging to Willis Knuckles which he claimed was in Atlanta, Georgia for "repairs."

Supporting Documents: Cellcom Invitation to President Knuckles/LISCR Communication GOL Press Release Steve Cashin's Communication

There is no indication in the JMG report that they contacted Yahoo to obtain specimen of these fragments. Neither is there an explanation from any of the targets as to why the original emails were deleted.

The report appears to be grossly incomplete and makes a general conclusion that except for the 600,000 dollars prepayment by Cellcom to Estrada Bernard, which warranted additional investigation, no other evidence of corruption was found.

The report which is dated November 25, 2008 entitled: CONFIDENTIAL M E M O R A N D U M was addressed to the head of the Ad Hoc commission Dr. Elwood Dunn. According to the confidential report, the 23-page memorandum summarized an investigation of five hard drives collected and cloned by mirror imaging in Monrovia between November 2 and November 8, 2008, pursuant to a request by the Ad Hoc Independent Committee (“Committee”) as appointed by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. “Specifically, the James Mintz Group (“JMG”) was asked by the Committee to analyze the hard drives belonging to key individuals reportedly linked to the investigation, and to review any data available as a means to authenticate the reported e-mail exchanges published by “Front Page Africa” which allegedly contain possible apparent violations of Liberian law and possibly U.S. law, including the “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,”  the report stated.

‘No evidence’ of corruption

Older Supporting Documents: LISCR Deal BMA Communication

The Mintz Group claims it did not find evidence of the published emails on any of the five computer hard drives examined by its investigators. However the report points out that it does not definitively mean that the emails do not exist, only that they were not identified during the course of this forensic analysis.

The group also reports that there is no evidence to suggest that any of the five individuals deleted significant data prior to forensic imaging of their hard drives. “Three emails were found on Knuckles’ computer (Target 4) that contain sentences similar to the text contained in emails published by Front Page Africa. The emails identified through the investigation of Target 4’s hard drive had slightly different variations in sentence structure, dates and language. This would suggest potential manipulation of the text as published by FPA. The emails found on Knuckles’”, according to the report.

Legal analysts who reviewed the report for FPA suggests bias on the part of the Mintz group in suggesting that they did not find any signs that led to corruption which appears to be a subjective conclusion in the view of the email where the amount of US$600,000 was wired to the President’s in law Bernard. Experts say the Mintz Group’s was only required to determine the authenticity. the secondary issue of whether there was corruption should be left with other aspects of the probe.

Ironically, the group reports that “A fragment of a text file in the free space on the drive was found which contains the text “Dear Karen/Fifi, the sum of USD600000 has been  wired from Cellcom as a prepayment on my (Attachment TK). The sentence is a portion of an email that appears to have been sent to femkoroma@aol.com from ktanoh@ecobank.com on or about Tuesday August 26, 2008.”

The report continues: “As mentioned about, these fragments were found in the drive’s free space. This information must be understood in the context of earlier explanatiop of drive free space and fragments. We do not know the voracity of this information or its relevance in the context of our investigation. This reference to a payement by Cellcom may warrant further investigation by the Committee.”

The group also noted that it found text in the same fragment in an email containing the email addresses femkoroma@aol.com and FRANDFUL@ecobank.com containing the phrase “urgent wiring instructions’, Romulus four your immediate attention please. Fiifi.’

The information was reportedly obtained from Bernard’s Founder R511 laptop with a system Serial Number SAXA002325  and Hard Drive Serial Number: S07WJ10L604229

The JMG suggests that emails from the computers examined  that are similar to the ones in FPA have nothing to do with corrupt activity. “It is possible that someone accessed Knuckles’ email account and made material changes to the original text in order to make it appear as if there were illegal payments. We describe the specifics of these emails below. Further corroboration of the authenticity of the emails published will be addressed in our upcoming report of our review of emails provided to us by Front Page Africa and LISCR. “

The group further reports that it found fragments of email evidence on Knuckles’ hard drive (Target 4) that correlate with interviews held between the Committee, JMG, Willis Knuckles and Hawa Knuckles in which it was stated that Knuckles’ was locked out of his email account (jrknuckles@yahoo.com) last summer. “An email exchange was identified on the hard drive, which confirms that Knuckles did communicate with Yahoo! on August 16, 2008, regarding his inability to access his jrknuckles@yahoo.com email account. We have provided you with a Washington, D.C. counsel’s letter explaining the steps that Mr. Knuckles could initiate to confirm both him being denied access to his Yahoo! account as we as for the IP address used when the password was changed for the account and information about historical logins,”  the group reported.

The JMG reports that it collected five forensic images while on-site in Monrovia, Liberia. The five images were collected in a forensically sound manner using industry-standard techniques. Complete system documentation and chain of custody documentation was generated for each of the five images. System information for each computer and chain of custody information for the hard drives are available upon request.

The JMG reports that Images were gathered using a SoloMasster imaging device or EnCase and all images were gathered through read-only bridges and did not modify the original evidence.

Knuckles report missing laptop(s)

KEY FINDING

The report suggested that based on interviews with Knuckles’ daughter, Hawa-Ellen, it was confirmed Hawa-Ellen Knuckles, plays a major role in drafting emails on her father's  behalf and in managing his administrative affairs.

According to the memo, during interviews with Knuckles conducted at 80 Broad Street in Monrovia, Liberia, the investigators learned that Knuckles and his daughter Hawa-Ellen Knuckles, used three laptops from mid 2007 until October 13 2008. "The first laptop, an HP1 Pavillion DV 6000, was in use from mid-2007 until mid-February 2008. This first laptop suffered a hardware failure and the hard drive was set aside for later use. The second laptop, an HP2 Pavillion DV6000, was purchased and placed into service from mid-February 2008 until June 2008. Upon purchase, the data from the first laptop was copied over to this second laptop in its entirety by a local IT shop in Monrovia," the report stated. 

The report furthered that the second laptop suffered a failure as well, and was sent to the United States for repair in June 2008: "Hawa Knuckles purchased a third laptop, a Gateway, in June 2008. The third laptop was in use from June 2008 until October 13, 2008. On October 13, 2008, the third laptop was stolen from Hawa’s driver while in front of her restaurant at 80 Broad Street. Hawa stated that she filed police reports but did not expect to have the laptop returned3. The hard drive image collected as Target 4 is the drive from the first laptop. This Target contains data from 2007 until approximately February 2008."

The report stated that JMG requested additional hard drives from Estrada Bernard and Willis and Hawa Knuckles. Bernard showed willingness to share the hard drive, but explained that it was currently at his residence in New York. "Similarly, Hawa and Willis Knuckles expressed a willingness to share the additional hard drive from the damaged computer once it has completed repairs by Hewlett Packard in Atlanta, USA. Recovery of these hard drives is considered outside the scope of the Phase 1 of this investigation, and will not be possible in the budget allocation provided by the Committee for Phase 2," the report stated. 

The reports also suggested that based on interviews with Knuckles’ daughter, Hawa-Ellen, it was confirmed Hawa-Ellen Knuckles, plays a major role in drafting emails on his behalf and in managing his administrative affairs. second laptop is currently being repaired at the vendor’s site in Maryland, United States. Hawa Knuckles offered to ship the repaired laptop directly to JMG for analysis if the Commission requests. Ironically, Hawa-Ellen works as a comptroller at the Buchannan Renewables Energy.

LISCR, too Claims Computer failure

Besides Knuckles, LISCR also reported having computer issues shortly after the scandal broke. The report states that in August 2008, LISCR’s computer server suffered a failure. “In our analysis there is no evidence to corroborate the suggestion that LISCR knowingly destroyed emails and possible evidence pertaining to the investigation. In JMG’s and Mandiant’s opinion, this server failure was legitimate,” the Mintz Group concluded.

JMG noted that as a result of the investigation, it believes that there is significant evidence to suggest that at least three of the e-mails as posted on FrontPage Africa were in part fabricated by an as yet unknown individual(s). It is probable that additional e-mails were similarly changed from their original composition.

In order to confirm this beyond any doubt, however, continued further investigation would be required. Mr. Willis Knuckles has been fully informed by the Committee on how he can best expedite and facilitate this process of obtaining proper access to his Yahoo! account. This is the clearest way for him to fully establish his claims that he has been unfairly accused of improper behavior. The Committee has offered to pay for his legal costs in pursuing access to his Yahoo! account in a federal court action in the U.S. It is also clear that both Minister Philip Banks’ and Knuckles’ personal e-mail accounts were illegally entered by an unauthorized unknown individual(s).

'No Evidence' FPA Altered E-mails

JMG reports that it has been able to confirmed that the FPA Editor had received e-mail directly from Knuckles’ and Banks’ e-mail accounts, as well as from two unidentified sources. "JMG has corroborated that the e-mails published by FPA were in fact exact copies of the emails received by FPA from the two sources. There is no evidence to suggest that Sieh altered any of the e-mails received from his sources for publication."

Fragment of texts - More Altered E-mails claim

JMG further reported that based on its analysis of hard drives, servers and e-mails received from the various parties interviewed during this investigation, as well as Mandiant’s forensic review of the six e-mails provided by LISCR and 116 e-mails and documents provided by FPA, it believes that the text of at least three of the e-mails published by FPA was materially altered to suggest Knuckles’ complicity in the bribery of officials. "Furthermore we believe that Knuckles’ actions attempting to ensure that LISCR continue their existing contract with the Liberian Government, would violate Liberian law and possibly U.S. law, including the FCPA. It is possible that additional e-mails were fraudulent in part or whole, but further investigation, including the legal action to seek access to Knuckles’ Yahoo! account, will need to be carried out in order to determine this. Fragments of text were found through investigation of LISCR e-mail and through forensic analysis of a computer hard drive provided by Knuckles that support the theory that portions of older messages were used to assemble the published messages. The original subject and tone of the verifiable fragments did not match that of certain published messages."

The group said it has information verifying that Knuckles’ e-mail account was improperly accessed from a computer in Reston, Virginia, during a time when Knuckles was in Liberia, which corroborates analysis provided to President Johnson-Sirleaf on August 29, 2008 by ExecutiveAction, LLC, an investigative firm retained by LISCR’s counsel. "JMG has confirmed that an e-mail purportedly from Knuckles to Yoram Cohen, LISCR CEO, was sent from IP address 76.111.67.49, an address owned by Comcast, allocated for use by a cable internet customer in Reston, Virginia, United States. Interviews with Knuckles and Cohen suggest that Knuckles was not in the United States between August 11 and August 15, 2008."

The group says the e-mail messages sent to Sieh from the unnamed sources originated from an IP address in the United States. E-mails sent to Rodney Sieh, FPA editor, directly from Knuckles’ Yahoo! account in September and October 2008 were sent from two other computers in the Reston, Virginia, area; one from a computer assigned to the Hyatt Corporation and the other to the Reston Sheraton hotel. Sieh stated that he had discussed the e-mails with an outside computer consultant.  "When JMG initially requested to meet with this consultant, Sieh responded affirmatively, but recently informed JMG that his legal advisor had counseled him against such a discussion. Consequently JMG did not speak with FPA’s computer consultant."

No sign of missing communications 

Not included in the 23-page confidential memo in FPA’s possession are findings on several communications obtained in the published e-mails by FrontPageAfrica, including the following which suggests a pledge of a payment of US$1M.

 Willis D. Knuckles, Jr. wrote:
From: Willis D. Knuckles, Jr.
Subject: Re: Fw: President's Invitation
Date: Sunday, August 17, 2008, 2:46 AM
On Thurs, 2/14/08, Abraham Avi Zaidenberg wrote:

Dear Willis,
You are the man! What would we do with out our PR man.It is only prove to me again that the issue of the pr men is extremely essential. Anyways please inform Madame President that her concerns will be addressed. Yoram told me that he has already informed you that the first payment of  US$1 Million will be made after our contract is signed.
Regards,
Avi

Bernard appears to be a key player in number of communications. In the following one for example, LISCR’s Cohen vents his frustration over what appears to be a delay in processing the contract renewal for the controversial program.

On Tue, 8/12/08, Yoram Cohen wrote:
From: "Yoram Cohen" ycohen@liscr.com
Subject: Re:  LISCR Update
To: "Willis D. Knuckles, Jr."
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 8:54 AM
Dear Willis,  It has been more than two weeks since I have last hear from you. I still don't have the information I have requested. After several payments made to Kesselly and others we are no further than when we began. Also I am hearing that your boss is trying to give the deal to Cashin and Pan African Capital to run it out of the Ib bank??? Cashin is a friend of her im sure she will give him a jump start.. What does Estrada have to say about this? I feel like this whole process is a game. I am not going continue any other form of contribution until I receive the formal authorization that you and Estrada have promised me.”

Best regards,
Yoram

Also absent from the JMG’s findings or at least the portions of the communications in FPA’s possession is the communication involving another Sirleaf’s aide Medina Wesseh, who also serves as Director General of the Cabinet.

Wesseh’s message reads:

medina wesseh wrote:

Uncle Willis

We might have to consider the cement activity now as there is a shortage than previously stated.  Banke called and she is frantic wanting dates of arrival.  so i have put some things in motion.

talked with tom jeff..and he will get feed back from steve. brief my mother on this.  she is okay. so we might get the back up from ib.  we might need deeds for our props.. mildred and I are standing by with ours.

want to see if we can even sell before it lands.  if all is set it will be for may ending.

aside from lac and firestone who will be the other big users..mital being still on hold..

Snr. Executive Assistant to the President/

Director General of the Cabinet a.i

Monrovia, Liberia

Tel. xxx x xxx xxx

Dr. D. Elwood Dunn presenting his findings to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf this week.

The alleged involvement of numerous Sirleaf aide in the scandal has prompted calls from activists group and the international community for a more independent probe with international presence. Sirleaf had previously stated that the U.S. State Department was asked to help but nothing has surfaced since. FPA has been able to confirmed that the State Department was not involved in the Mintz Group investigation. The JMG was recruited by the Dunn Commission and paid by the Liberian government.

Thomas Nah, the Executive Director of the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia says Liberians expect President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to punish those officials who would be implicated in the so-called Knuckles Gate II commission report.

The expectation of the Liberian people is that those who believe that government is a hunting ground to illegally enrich themselves should be prosecuted and dealt with under the law. And if this report authenticates that indeed the emails were authentic, we will expect that the president act, and she will act decisively. She will dismiss those who are in government, and we will expect that there will be legal recourse also,” he said.

But in the absence of what suggests an inconclusive finding, based on the confidential memo obtained by FPA, it remains to be seen how Sirleaf and the Unity Party government would respond to the controversy or handle the Dunn’s findings.

It is not clear whether Sirleaf intends to make the full report public, but FPA is making all efforts to obtained the full report.

Sirleaf has been known to dismiss findings of previous commissions hired by her to probe controversial incidents. In 2007, in the aftermath of a fight involving Director of Police Beatrice Munah Sieh and other top Liberian national police officers, Sirleaf set up an investigation board chaired by Presidential Security Advisor, H. Boima Fahnbulleh.

The Committee recommended the dismissal of Director Munah Sieh for her alleged role in the Freeport fight, but President Sirleaf did not carry out the committee’s recommendation. In 2007 the Liberian National Police were involved in a bloody confrontation with Freeport of Monrovia security, leaving a number of persons injured and property damaged.

Watergate parallel: How much does Sirleaf Knows?

With the current controversy involving emails alleging that some current and former officials in the Sirleaf government solicited bribes from an American who heads the Liberian International Shipping Corporate Registry (LISCR) in order to get a renewal of his contract without competitive bidding, Sirleaf faces a daunting task to silence her critics who have raised doubts over her corruption stance.

For Nah, companies seeking to do business in Liberia, like the Liberian International Shipping Corporate Registry (LISCR) should pay the price if found they tried to corrupt Liberian government officials.

According to Dunn, of the more than USD$250,000 provided for the Commission’s work, approximately USD $161,000 was expended to hire and pay external experts, including the Mintz Group, who assisted the Commission in its work. About USD $82,000 was used by the Commission for operations. The Commission, Professor Dunn said, is returning to Government about USD$23,000. Even with money left to spare, it appears the commission did not have the time or funds to come out with a conclusive finding. Dunn is due back to his day job as a Professor of Political Science at the University of the South, in Sawnee, Tenn. next week. More complicating and even more important it appears the commission was not successful in getting Yahoo to cooperate with the probe, leaving the report submitted to Sirleaf apparently inconclusive.

Some USD$250,000 later, observers say much is riding on Sirleaf’s shoulders as Liberians and the international community await her action on the Knuckles-gate II scandal. Depending on how the coin lands, the looming decision may be too close - or perhaps too painful for Sirleaf to bear. Like the famous Watergate scandal in the U.S., the apparent involvement of her sister’s husband in this controversy raises the stakes. Borrowing a  page from the Richard Nixon scandal, the Knuckles-Gate II saga could pose for Sirleaf an interesting dilemma and the famous question: How much did Sirleaf know and when did she know it?

Stay Tuned!