Mordet på Olof Palme - 28 februari 1986

A large-scale Israeli Government operation. Of course Teamco and Truventa also
provided another layer of camouflage for yet other companies working with Iran.
For example, Stork facilities and Israel Aircraft Industries' (IAI) engine division
were interested in contracts to overhaul the jet engines everyone thought were
about to be bought by Iran. But Stork needed the "permission of its principals,
Fabrique National," and IAI required "a European intermediate organization ...
to protect the source identification."86
The "full partnership" between GMT and Truventa covered all programs in
Iran and Peru, the latter ones having to do with both the military and the
police. Truventa was important for at least three reasons: the first was the
Bergers' and Hassan's influence in Iran, the second was that it hid GMT's
involvement. "For various known reasons," wrote Ron Harel, "both programs,
Peru and Iran, shall be conducted through Truventa. And third, GMT sold
22 jet engines to Truventa for around S4() million leaving GMT with a profit of
In a few months there was another game on. This one featured reconstituted
F-4s with additional spare engines. The transaction was in the hands of Austin
Aerospace and GMT was a potential player. Austin was going to buy the F-4s
from Egypt and sell them to Iran after running them (or the paper) through
Turkey. In November, Austin Aerospace telexed Harel further details about the
F-4. Austin pointed out this offer would go to "3 other groups whoever comes in
first that is who we are going to proceed with." Hidden behind this chatter was the
simple fact that Austin Aerospace was under the sway of a cabal of former CIA
and Defense Department swindlers who controlled the transport of U.S. weapons
to Egypt. Intriguingly, General Singlaub played with the cabal when it came to
Austin Aerospace. He was on its Board of Directors.
There were 18 F-4s "overhauled as of last December 1983; there are spare
parts sufficient for 18 months operation." There were 20 spare engines. For the
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entire transaction, the cost to the Iranians was over $300 million. For GMT
to play, it had to come up with a serious and irrevocable letter of credit which it
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did not do.


Consulentia and the Lewistown account were set up for several reasons. One
was to hide money from others at GMT; another, as Ron Harel said, was both "to
avoid taxes in the U. S" and scrutiny "because the transactions were not legal
„ 102
in the United States Money was moved back and forth between Consulentia
and another GMT account named "Claude" at the Banque Nationale de Paris in
Geneva, Switzerland, and likely others yet unknown as well. Handling "Claude"
was Eddy Maisonneuve, BNP's Sous Directeur. On May 16, 1985, Studley
cabled Maisonneuve to advise him "of confirmation received ... transfer of
S3.3 million to 'Claude.
A couple of weeks later, Harel sent a note to
Paul Husser at Bank Leu, Zurich, in order to transfer funds from "Lewistown
9020-40418-0" into "Claude" at BNP. 104
She was very good at concealing money and, it turned out, borrowing but not
repaying large sums. In 1987, banker Petrillo started on his long slide to prison
because of loans or money transfers to Studley who did not repay them. While
the head of finance for GMT, Petrillo had moved from Florida National Bank to
the Bayshore Bank of Florida, a small Miami-area institution. The year before,
1986, Petrillo had transferred $2 million from Bayshore to an overseas bank at the
request of Studley. Unfortunately for Bayshore's depositors, this was about all of
the bank's net worth. Bayshore was crashing and hardly anyone besides the
malefactors, it seems, knew where the money went, what it was used for, and
whether it would ever be repaid.

One of the Iranian proposals that GMT capped was for the explosives which
appears to have been negotiated either in late 1983 or early 1984. On February
14, 1984, Scandinavian Commodity, headed by Karl-Erik Schmitz and located in
Malmo, Sweden, sent a confirmation letter on this matter to Ron Harel. The
arrangement was for 2,000 metric tons of propellant for 155 millimeter
howitzers. It would be sent in plastic bags placed in cardboard boxes on pallets
in new containers painted white. The only printing on the containers would be
"SCANCOM"; there would not be any other marks or labels. The price was
$6.80 per kilo. The payment: "Net cash against presentation of documents with
Kredietbank, Luxembourg against irrevocable letter of credit opened by Bank
Melli (Iranian bank) London in buyers favour." The material would be loaded on
board a ship at a Dutch port and delivered to "southern Iranian ports." Any prob-
lems "shall be constructed and decided in conformity with the Iranian laws and
also the place of jurisdiction will be in Iran."


Overall, GMT was pleased with the progress of the transaction although there
were some matters that had to be changed. Perhaps the most important had to do
with the Bank Melli and letters of credit (L/C). On the 25th of July, GMT wrote to
Schmitz the following: "Sub. Financial arrangements. l) As discussed during our
meeting in Vienna, neither IMI [Israel Military Industries] nor Hirtenberger [one
of IMI's chiefs] can receive Bank Melli's direct L/C. It must be an L/C obtained
by a European bank. If this issue is solved then there are no problems whatso-
ever"90 Over the course of a few months, the deal had also grown a bit larger and
even more complex. There was now more material — 3,000 metric tons of T.N.T.,
fuses, and 81 and 120 mm mortar flare shells, and two types of 155 mm howitzer
91
shells.
Interestingly enough, some of the material in the transaction (not the
T.N.T. or 155 mm shells, however) might have been produced at the U.S. Army
92
arsenal in Radford, Virginia, operated by Hercules.
GeoMiliTech covered its tracks well when it came to its relationship with
Scandinavian Commodity and Mr. Schmitz as can be seen when this particular
Iranian exchange was exposed in 1987. A Reuters dispatch from Stockholm noted
that Swedish Customs authorities were claiming "that Israel had sold millions of dol-
lars worth of explosives, artillery ammunition and shell components to Iran through
a Swedish middleman between 1984 and 1986." Israel heatedly denied the charge
although the Swedes had seized documents that clearly implicated Israel Military
Industries. (Reuters and the Swedes did not know, of course, that Israel's Ministry of
Defense had a secret signed "understanding" with Major General Singlaub repre-
senting GMT93 and that GMT itself had an agreement with the Ministry concerning
the marketing of tanks mentioned earlier). One of the documents that showed IMI's
involvement also detailed a series of subterfuges used in the operation. The actual
orders for the explosives came from Sweden's largest arms company, Bofors, "with
which Schmitz was closely associated." Other documents disclosed the shipments
were supposedly bound from Western Europe to the Yugoslavian port of Bar. There
was no mention of GeoMiliTech which was well hidden behind Scandinavian
Commodity, IMI, and Yugoslavia which came into the picture as the supplier of the
most significant product in the deal — the 155 mm long range howitzer shells. The
Yugoslav side was handled by Igor Schou Kjeldsen, affiliated with GMT and
Scandinavian Commodity, who knew his way around Yugoslavia's Federal Direc-
torate of Supply and Procurement, a part of the Federal Secretariat of National
Defense. On July 18, 1984, the Federal Directorate in Belgrade sent Igor a copy of
Scandinavian Commodity contract — No. V-2/MBL/DS-l.

The transaction was done; the items delivered to Iran; the profits deposited.
Harel sent a telex saying all went smoothly; Studley responded — "Happy days."
"Better to have One's Own Capital"
Barbara Studley prepared the ground to hide money earned by GMT in 1984. The
first step was to hook up with Jean B. de la Giroday who lived in Bethesda Maryland.
His resume indicates a Ph.D. in international finance from Oxford University and




many years experience with Eurodollar bond issues. It also shows seven years as the
Managing Director of Banque Cantrade, Geneva, the founding of a Nigerian mer-
chant bank dubbed the African Banking Company Ltd., and, the creation of the
Turks and Caicos Banking Company Ltd (T&CBC).
While he may have indeed "structured and created" T&CBC, he was apparently
never an owner of record. According to the T&CBS's 1983 brochure, it was
established in Dec. 1980, and capitalized at US $500,000. "With significant busi-
ness growth, the capital has been increased to USS2.65m," noted the brochure.
There were two main shareholders: (l) "The Union Planters National Bank of
Memphis, Tennessee, a leading regional bank with assets of over US $1.7 billion,"
and (2) "Motorships, Inc. of Monrovia, Liberia, wholly owned by Mr. Nils
O. Seim," characterized by retired British banker David Whitby "as a secretive
Norwegian shipping tycoon." Seim was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
Turks and Caicos Banking Company. One of its directors was William
M. Matthews Jr., "chairman & CEO of Union Planters National Bank [UPNBI."
Its other officers included Eustace A. Brooks, secretary (British American Life
Insurance Company); general manager, Anton J. B. Faessler, "formerly of Zurich,
Switzerland." Whitly recollected that "Faessler may have been ex-Banque
Cantrade (merchant bank subsidiary of Union Bank of Switzerland.) At some
point in the 1980s, Seim died and Bill Matthews left the Board of the Union
Planters National Bank. When Matthews exited Union Planters, it sold out its
investments in T&CNB as well as in a Paris financial company (Finacor) and a
countertrade firm in Nigeria called Unitrade.
Studley's second step was the incorporation on December 10, 1984, of a Turks
95
and Caicos company called Consulentia Ltd., whose sole director was Giroday.
Next she contacted Harel to tell him that he was the only one who could use
Consulentia and the only one who would know about it, except, of course, for
Giroday, Florida banker Petrillo, and Terence Donegan who was their attorney in
the Turks and Caicos. She added that Harel was never to mention Consulentia
over the phone or in a telex; never to call Donegan from Harel's office; and never
to mention his name to Donegan if calling from another source. He was only to
say "C. L. Corp." Consulentia, she literally underlined, must not be linked to his
office, and, she further pointed out that there were no records of thefirm in the
Washington office.96

Consulentia raises other somewhat confusing but potentially dramatic issues in
the burgeoning off-shore world Giroday constructed for Studley. Recollect that
Giroday claimed in his c.v., that Banque Cantrade (Zurich) "asked" him to
"to create, structure and develop Banque Cantrade, Geneva. He did so and was
the Geneva manager from 1970 through 1977. What makes this extraordinary is
the following: when Robert Vesco was busy looting Bernie Cornfeld's tottering
mutual fund empire, Investors Overseas Services, he used the services of
"Consulentia a sub of Banque Cantrade."97 Vesco testified that in December 1970,
he first approached George Phillipe, a "senior official at Bank Cantrade, a sub-
sidiary of Union Bank" of Switzerland, "to determine if it had an interest in pur-
chasing the Cornfeld shares. Then.a few days before the closing on Cornfeld's