US judge denies George Nader's motion to dismiss child sex charge
A Lebanese-American businessman who established ties between the Trump administration, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and served as a key Mueller investigation witness, has failed to convince a judge to dismiss one of three child sex charges against him.
George Nader, 60, sought to persuade US District Judge Leonie Brinkema that too much time had passed to prosecute him on charges that he transported a 14-year-old Czech boy to the United States in 2000 for sexual activity.
But in an 18-page opinion, Brinkema denied his dismissal motion this week, noting that the alleged victim is still alive and pointing out that transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity is an offense for which there is no statute of limitations.
As Middle East Eye reported earlier this year, Nader has a long history of attempting to make himself indispensable to US administrations by offering back-channel communication with regional figures.
In recent years, he served as Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed’s senior political adviser, helping him with his dealings in Moscow and Washington.
In late 2015, he arranged a secret summit of Arab leaders on a yacht in the Red Sea where he suggested they should realign power in the region and create an elite group to supplant the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League.
Most recently, he was key to establishing an alliance between the Trump administration, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But he has also repeatedly been caught in possession of child pornography and has already served a prison sentence for the abuse of young boys.
In interviews with MEE, former associates of Nader’s have raised questions about whether his international contacts turned a blind eye to his conduct because of his use as a fixer or if his criminal tendencies may have made him valuable to unscrupulous leaders and their intelligence agencies.
In January 2018, when Nader landed at Washington Dulles International Airport from Dubai, he was served with search warrants and FBI agents confiscated three phones from him, later finding child pornography.
However, charges against him over the cache were only unsealed this June, more than a year after he had started cooperating with Robert Mueller, the US special counsel who was investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. During this time Nader was permitted to travel outside the country.
According to the Daily Beast, Mueller’s team were interested in two meetings in particular.
The first was a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles that Nader set up between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds.
The second was an August 2016 meeting between Prince, Donald Trump Jr and Joel Zamel, owner of Wikistrat, which describes itself as a crowdsource consultancy, but which is also reportedly engaged in intelligence collection.
When Nader flew in to John F Kennedy International Airport in New York City in June, he was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography.
Then in July, Nader was indicted on three different charges including transporting a 14-year-old Czech boy to the US in 2000 for sexual activity. He pled not guilty.
His trial had originally been set for September, but has dragged on and is now expected to start early next year.
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