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U.S. visa chief asked to resign over Mideast bribery scandal

Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Thursday, July 11, 2002

The most senior U.S. career diplomat has been asked to resign amid an investigation that State Department staffers sold visas to Middle East nationals, including those connected to the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Mary Ryan was asked to resign by Secretary of State Colin Powell. She was the most senior U.S. career diplomat and served in the post for eight years.

Deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said Ms. Ryan agreed to Powell's request to resign. Reeker said the dismissal was not connected to the visa scandal or criticism of the rapid processing of applications by Saudi nationals to enter the Untied States.

"This was just seen as the time for her to move on," Reeker said. But U.S. officials said Ms. Ryan was held responsible for a scandal that has rocked the State Department and sparked an investigation in U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East. Two State Department employees based in Qatar have been under investigation for allegedly selling dozens of U.S. visas to foreign nationals in the Middle East.

The two employees were said to have issued visas to at least 70 Middle East nationals -- most of them Jordanians and Pakistanis -- in exchange for bribes of as much as $10,000 per visa. Officials said the the employees worked in the U.S. embassy in Doha from April 2000 to July 2001.

"This investigation has been focused on the alleged, illegal issuance of visas to approximately 70 individuals at the U.S. embassy in Doha," Reeker said on Wednesday. "We determined specifically that 71 individuals received visas for which the appropriate written records were not found. These were issued between July 2000 and May 2001 to third-country nationals, that is citizens of countries other than Qatar or the United States, obviously."

Officials said U.S. authorities have arrested 31 of the 70 Middle East nationals who entered the United States on illegal visas. They said at least six have already left the United States.

ABC News identified one State Department employee as a U.S. citizen and the other as a Jordanian national. The television network reported that one of those who bribed the two embassy employees was Rasmi Al Shannaq, a Jordanian national who is believed to have roomed with two of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers and was arrested on June 24.

Reeker said much of the State Department's authority for visas will be transferred to the new Homeland Security Department. But the department will continue to process visas.

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