Good morning Chairwoman Sanchez, Ranking Member Souder, and members
of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today
to discuss the FBI’s Legal Attaché program, its success,
and coordination with our international partners and other federal,
state, and local government agencies of the United States.
The Legal Attaché Program
The foundation of the FBI’s international program is the Office
of International Operations and the Legal Attaché, or “Legat,” each
of whom is FBI Director Robert Mueller’s personal representative
in the foreign country in which he/she resides or for which he/she has
regional responsibilities. FBI personnel abroad serve under the authority
of the Department of State, Chief of Mission at United States Embassies,
around the world, at the pleasure of Ambassadors and host country governments.
Their core mission is to establish and maintain liaison with principal
law enforcement and security services in designated foreign countries.
This liaison enables the FBI to effectively and expeditiously conduct its
responsibilities in combating international terrorism, organized crime,
cyber crime, and general criminal matters. In particular, Legat liaison
activities are essential to the successful fulfillment overseas of the
FBI’s lead federal law enforcement mission to prevent terrorist attacks
against citizens and interests of the United States. Liaison is carried
out in accordance with Executive Orders, statutes, treaties, Attorney General
Guidelines, FBI policies, and interagency agreements. The Legal Attaché program
provides for a prompt and continuous exchange of information with foreign
law enforcement and security agencies and coordination with U.S. federal
law enforcement agencies that have jurisdiction over the matters under
investigation. Our foreign-based personnel also assist foreign agencies
with requests for investigative assistance in the United States to encourage
reciprocal assistance in counterterrorism, criminal, and other investigative
matters.
In addition to the Legat program, the FBI’s international law enforcement
activities focus on one other key element—international training.
Through international training, the FBI provides foreign law enforcement
officers with skills in both basic and advanced investigative techniques
and principles that promote cooperation and aid in the collection of evidence.
Training allows the FBI to demonstrate major crime scene, counterterrorism,
and other investigative techniques, while establishing better working relationships,
thus strengthening cooperation among law enforcement personnel worldwide.
Funded by the Department of State or Department of Defense, significant
training programs include the International Law Enforcement Academies in
Budapest, Hungary, Bangkok, Thailand, and Gaborone, Botswana, as well as
bilateral training programs targeting anti-terrorism, weapons of mass destruction,
and terrorist financing. The FBI also participates in Bilateral Working
Groups and several additional counterterrorism training programs in the
Middle East.
The FBI’s Legal Attaché Program was developed to pursue
international aspects of the FBI’s investigative mandates through
established liaison with principal law enforcement and security services
in foreign countries and to provide a prompt and continuous exchange of
information with these partners. The FBI currently has 60 fully operational
Legat offices and 15 sub-offices, with 165 agents and 103 support personnel
assigned for a total of 268 employees stationed around the world. The growth
of transnational crime caused by the explosion in computer and telecommunications
technology, the liberalization of immigration policies, and the increased
ease of international travel has made it necessary for the United States
to cooperate with countries around the world concerning security issues.
The FBI’s role in international investigations has expanded due to
the authority granted by the Congressional application of extraterritorial
jurisdiction.
As the FBI’s domestic investigative responsibilities become increasingly
intertwined with international criminal and terrorist elements in other
countries, the FBI must continually enhance its ability to conduct complex
investigations and acquire evidence from abroad for criminal prosecutions
in the United States. To do so requires close coordination with international
partners and security services. Some of the FBI’s most important
and visible investigations are multi-national in scope, placing greater
demands on the FBI, especially in the field, as more case agents are faced
with challenges in obtaining admissible evidence for domestic prosecutions.
The Role of the Legal Attaché
The FBI Legal Attaché works with the law enforcement and security
agencies in their host country to coordinate investigations of interest
to both countries. The role of Legal Attachés is primarily one of
coordination, as they do not conduct foreign intelligence gathering or
counterintelligence investigations. The rules for joint activities and
information sharing are generally spelled out in formal agreements between
the United States and the host nation.
Typical duties of a Legal Attaché include coordinating requests
for FBI or host country assistance overseas; conducting investigations
in coordination with the host government; sharing investigative leads and
information; briefing Embassy counterparts from other agencies, including
law enforcement agencies, as appropriate, and Ambassadors; managing country
clearances; providing situation reports concerning cultural protocol; assessing
political and security climates; and coordinating victim and humanitarian
assistance.
Legal Attaché Coordination
The Legal Attaché offices provide critical and timely support
in the defense of our homeland through direct coordination with the Department
of Justice, Department of State, Interpol, and other law enforcement and
security entities. For example, the FBI has full-time detailees to the
Interpol offices in Lyon, France, the United Nations, and the Washington,
D.C., based National Central Bureau. Together with the Department of State,
the Office of International Affairs of the Criminal Division, Department
of Justice, is responsible for the negotiations of bilateral and multilateral
law enforcement treaties needed to effect the extraditions of fugitives
and to facilitate collection of evidence from foreign countries. In addition
to the Office of International Affairs, the FBI also supports the ongoing
efforts of the Department of Justice to provide long-term justice sector
assistance to prosecution and police services in numerous foreign countries.
This long-term assistance, which is provided through the Criminal Division’s
Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT),
and the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program
(ICITAP), helps to ensure that our foreign partners not only follow the
most modern law enforcement techniques, but also respect the rule of law.
As a result, the Legal Attaché offices benefit from their coordination,
training, and mutual support. The Legal Attaché offices directly
coordinate with United States Embassy representatives by personally representing
the FBI as a country team member and serving as the lead federal law enforcement
agent for all crimes for which it exercises lead investigative jurisdiction.
That includes both counterterrorism and terrorism finance investigations.
In virtually all major FBI investigations, a significant international
nexus develops. To balance the FBI’s interest in addressing the international
aspects of its investigations with the requirement to respect the host
country’s national sovereignty, the FBI must rely on the capability
of the host country’s law enforcement community. This is accomplished
through the liaison partnerships developed by the Legal Attaché and
reinforced through elements of the international law enforcement community
such as Interpol, the FBI’s National Academy, and numerous working
groups, task forces, and training initiatives. These efforts foster interagency
cooperation and are extremely productive in the pursuit of traditional
criminal law enforcement matters, and even more so as we seek to identify,
disrupt, and prosecute terrorists.
Legal Attaché Success
The Legal Attaché offices have had numerous accomplishments over
the years. As many of these items are sensitive, ongoing investigative
matters, I offer merely a few efforts with which members of the committee
may already be familiar:
- Since the September 11th attacks on the United States, the FBI’s
Office of International Operations has increased its personnel by 60
percent. This expansion has occurred domestically through operational
support units at FBI Headquarters, as well as through an increase in
54 percent of overseas Legat office locations. On September 11th, the
FBI’s Office of International Operations and Legats facilitated
the rapid deployment of over 700 FBI personnel to countries in Europe,
Africa, and the Middle East.
- The FBI coordinated and provided assistance to our Indonesian counterparts
through Legal Attachés following the October 12, 2002, bombing
in a Bali, Indonesia tourist district, which resulted in more than 200
deaths, including seven citizens of the United States. FBI personnel
were on scene and offered forensic capabilities to the Indonesian National
Police through the Legal Attaché office.
- As many of you recall, a large earthquake in the Indian Ocean occurred
on December 26, 2004, triggering a series of lethal tsunami waves killing
an estimated 230,000 people (including 168,000 in Indonesia alone.) The
FBI, Legal Attaché and Interpol personnel were involved in helping
to successfully identify over 8,000 victims through fingerprint analysis.
- On May 10, 2005, the newly established Legal Attaché in Tbilisi,
Georgia, was assisting the United States Secret Service Presidential
Protective Detail when an individual tossed an Armenian hand grenade
wrapped in a red handkerchief near the President’s stage. Georgian
officials worked directly with Legat Tbilisi and submitted the red handkerchief
and other evidentiary items to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia,
for DNA analysis. Following a joint investigative effort between the
Georgians and the FBI, the suspect was captured two months later in July
2005 and subsequently convicted, based in part, on the DNA evidence gathered
from the handkerchief.
- On July 7, 2005, three suicide bombers exploded Improvised Explosive
Devices contained in backpacks within fifty seconds of each other on
three London Underground commuter trains. A fourth bomb exploded on a
bus nearly an hour later. The attacks killed 56 people, including the
four suicide bombers, and injured 700. Legat London was integral in facilitating
FBI assistance to New Scotland Yard.
- In 2006, Israel began a lengthy bombing and ground campaign against
Hizballah elements in Beirut, Lebanon. The bombing led to a mass evacuation
of Americans from Beirut to Cyprus via the United States military. Legat
Athens played a critical role during the evacuation. Working with other
United States Embassy personnel from the Departments of State and Justice,
Legat Athens acquired copies of all United States passenger manifests
to ensure terrorist elements did not enter Cyprus and attempt to enter
the United States during the mass evacuation. Legat Athens then supplied
manifests to the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters
for review against databases. In addition, while working with the Department
of Defense, Legat Athens assisted our Beirut sub-office in the expeditious
return of 12 high-ranking Lebanese law enforcement officials who had
been in Washington, D.C., for FBI-sponsored training.
- In August 2007, the Department of Justice announced two plea agreements
and record-setting $600 million fines in association with a multi-national
criminal conspiracy on the part of international airline corporations
to fix prices on passenger and cargo flights worldwide. Several Legat
offices were involved and continue to support this ongoing criminal investigation.
- This past month, Director Mueller met with European partners and stressed
the importance of transatlantic cooperation and intelligence sharing,
provided that national judicial traditions and laws are respected. Director
Mueller also met with newly appointed members of French President Nicolas
Sarkozy’s cabinet to discuss ways to strengthen aggressive cooperative
efforts on counterterrorism, cyber crime, and transnational organized
crime matters.
- A Fort Worth, Texas retiree was recently released from captivity after
being kidnapped in the Dominican Republic for a $1 million ransom. After
being dragged through the jungle, bound, gagged, blindfolded, and dumped
in a cave for three days, the victim was rescued due to relationships
established with the host nation’s police and army forces. The
FBI’s Miami and Dallas Divisions, Legat, United States Embassy
personnel, and FBI crisis negotiators assisted in this recovery.
- Just two weeks ago, the Department of Justice announced that Oussama
Abdullah Kassir, an accused terrorist, was extradited from the Czech
Republic to face charges in the Southern District of New York. Kassir
was taken into FBI custody in Prague on September 25, 2007. Kassir was
arrested in Prague on December 11, 2005, by Czech authorities, based
on a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York and
a corresponding arrest warrant on file with Interpol. Legat Prague and
several other FBI personnel were instrumental in this effort.
These are just a few achievements Legal Attachés have attained
in order to protect our nation, its citizens, and its interests abroad
through coordination with foreign law enforcement in the continuous fight
against terrorism and international crime, in furtherance of our goal of
interagency cooperation.
In closing, the FBI Legal Attachés are committed to continuing
collaborative work abroad, supporting domestic FBI investigative matters,
and coordinating with foreign, federal, state and local law enforcement
agencies in the fight against terrorism. The FBI must rely on the capabilities
of the host country’s law enforcement community. In order to ensure
that such investigations are brought to successful conclusions, the establishment
and maintenance of effective liaison through training and other initiatives
must be developed and maintained. The Legats must have direct connectivity
between the federal agents and foreign law enforcement officials abroad
in order to be successful. At an alarmingly frequent rate, more and more
crimes are being committed across international borders. Technology, communication,
and transportation have done more to blur international borders in recent
years than ever before. Combating transnational crime and terrorism, therefore,
requires cooperation by law enforcement agencies on a global scale. The
focus of the Office of International Operations is to advance the domestic
and international mission of the FBI, to promote relations with both foreign
and domestic law enforcement and security services operating in the international
arena, and to facilitate investigative activities where permissible.
The FBI, the Office of International Operations, and its collective Legal
Attaché office personnel look forward to future cooperation with
all partners, domestic and foreign, to protect the citizens and interests
of the United States.
Thank you Chairwoman Sanchez and members of the Subcommittee for the
opportunity to testify before you today. I am happy to answer any questions
you may have.
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