Doha: Shady characters recruited by the FBI to spy on Muslims in the US are revealed in a new documentary.
Informants, by Aljazeera’s Investigative Unit, premiered internationally yesterday.
It explores methods and motivations of FBI informants on the front line of the bureau’s counterterrorism activities. Informants profiled by Aljazeera admit they spied for money, not for country.
“It had nothing to do with ‘my country, ’tis of thee,’ it had to do with, I wanted to be in on the big game and to be paid top dollar for it,” says Informant Craig Monteilh.
Another informant, Elie Assaad, tells Aljazeera how he was often sent in to clean up the botched work of other informants.
“I never lost a case all these years, even sometimes when they have cases where they feel they’re going to lose and they bring me to jump in and put it back on track,” Assaad says.
With access to FBI agents and informants and undercover recordings, the documentary raises questions about whether the men targeted in sting operations would have acted were it not for paid informants working on the cases.
“It literally boils down into, if you cannot find terrorists within the Muslim community, make terrorists. Create terrorists,” Yassir Fazaga, a Southern California Imam targeted by the FBI, tells Aljazeera.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the FBI set about to recruit a network of over 15,000 informants. As Informants shows, many were sent in to Muslim communities with incentives: find threats and you’ll get paid. But did they find real threats, or just paydays? Peter Ahearn, a retired FBI special agent, tells Aljazeera that handling informants can be difficult. “They’ll lie to you. They’ll misstate. They’ll misrepresent.”
But he says informants are necessary for the FBI’s counterterrorism mission. There’s a saying in the bureau: “To catch the devil, you have to go to hell.”
In the documentary, Aljazeera’s Investigative Unit broadcasts never-before-seen video from FBI undercover sting operations; interviews three former informants and reveals new information about crimes they committed while working for the government; exposes how the FBI targeted one young man for recruitment as an informant; features an interview with a man convicted on terrorism charges in one of the highest-profile federal cases of the last decade; and reveals the identity of one of the secret informants.
Aljazeera Investigative Reporter Trevor Aaronson, who has reported on the FBI for years, guides viewers through this shadowy world of informants and controversial counterterrorism operations.
The documentary will also be available on Aljazeera’s website and YouTube.
The Peninsula
