"Friedland mired in Australian scandal"
To: Joe and All, this just came in ===================================================
DiamondWorks Ltd DMW
Shares issued 56,518,282 Apr 7 close $2.40
Tue 8 Apr 97 In the News
THIS STORY, BY TONY WRIGHT, APPEARED IN THE SYDNEY HERALD ON APRIL 7, 1997.
IT IS REPRINTED VERBATIM.
Monday, April 7, 1997
Man with the Midas touch linked to mercenary bosses
By TONY WRIGHT
The mining magnate Robert Friedland - a part-time Australian resident who
last year bought one of Sydney's most expensive harbourside mansions on
Point Piper - is considered among investors as the man with the golden
touch in the world of mineral resources.
Less well-known in Australia is that he has a close association with those
involved with the Sandline mercenary company, which is ensnared in an
explosive inquiry in Papua New Guinea.
Last year he brokered a deal that resulted in one of his associated
companies getting the rights to diamond concessions in Angola and Sierra
Leone that were "liberated" and are still guarded by mercenaries from
Executive Outcomes - the company hired by Sandline to train and fight on
Bougainville.
His involvement, and that of his associates, provides an intriguing insight
into one of the many missing links in a saga that has already uncovered
evidence that Sandline proposed to the PNG Government that it be given a
slice of the huge Panguna copper mine on Bougainville.
The United States-born Mr Friedland, who paid $10 million last March for
his mansion in Wolsley Road, is a former hippy who is now on his way to
becoming a billionaire thanks to a huge nickel strike in Canada in 1994.
He is involved in numerous mining ventures, including the Savage River
project in Tasmania, and boasts that he plans to become one of the leading
low-cost producers of copper in the Asia-Pacific.
His links to Sandline mercenary figures are through a complex web of
international mining companies and business associations.
The complexity and subtlety of those links, which snake around the world
from Canada to Britain to Africa and now to PNG and Sydney, underline the
difficulties facing the inquiry in Port Moresby into the mercenary contract
that plunged PNG into crisis last month.
The common thread, exposed yesterday by reporter-producer Stan Correy on
Radio National's Background Briefing, is a Canadian-based company called
DiamondWorks Ltd.
DiamondWorks, whose chairman and chief executive officer is Mr Friedland's
brother Eric, was set up last year when a Friedland company in Canada known
as Carson Gold took over a British company named Branch Energy.
Branch Energy has close links with the South African-based mercenary outfit
known as Executive Outcomes, which in turn is linked with Sandline.
It was Mr Robert Friedland who introduced the principals of Branch Energy
to Eric when Branch Energy came looking for finance in Canada last year.
The man who came to Mr Friedland looking for a financial deal for Branch
Energy was Mr Michael Grunberg, described in the PNG inquiry last week as
Sandline's finance controller. The result was DiamondWorks.
Mr Robert Friedland initially held a substantial slice of the company, but
following an unsuccessful mining venture in China his shareholding was
reduced to about 4 per cent.
Nevertheless, DiamondWorks is considered throughout US and Canadian mining
markets to be one of his companies.
Its British head office is listed as 535 Kings Road, London - the same
address as Sandline International.
Among those listed as holding share options in the company is Tim Spicer,
the chief of Sandline who has been detained in PNG to give evidence to the
mercenary inquiry.
Mr Friedland retains a direct link with DiamondWorks through a Ms Beverly
Downing, DiamondWorks' corporate secretary and director.
She is also responsible for the corporate development and administration of
the North American headquarters of Mr Robert Friedland's private company,
Ivanhoe Capital Corporation, which is based in Singapore.
Ivanhoe Capital's own promotional brochure lists DiamondWorks as "one of
many companies that has benefited from its association with Ivanhoe
Capital".
Mr Grunberg, interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in
February this year, confirmed his links with Mr Friedland.
He said that when he went to Canada on behalf of Branch Energy, "We started
discussions with the Friedlands, and we developed a relationship, which
resulted in the integration of our diamond assets in Angola and Sierra
Leone into one of their companies".
"We started discussions with Robert Friedland, who introduced us to Eric."
Mr Grunberg, also a senior executive of Branch Energy Ltd, is now a
director of DiamondWorks and is described in company documents as having
"directed Branch Energy's diversification away from oil and gas to mineral
joint ventures in several African States".
His colleague is Mr Tony Buckingham, a former British military officer who
is the principal of Branch Energy and a director and major shareholder in
DiamondWorks.
The PNG inquiry was told last week that when the Sandline contract was
first discussed (in Cairns) between senior figures from the PNG Government,
the PNG military and Sandline, Mr Buckingham attended.
Branch Energy - and now DiamondWorks - holds diamond-mining concessions in
the African countries of Sierra Leone and Angola.
Those concessions became available only after Executive Outcomes'
mercenaries were hired to recapture the mining areas from rebels in 1993
and 1995.
Mr Buckingham said in his interview with the CBC that Executive Outcomes
had been "very useful" in capturing the mining areas in Sierra Leone and
Angola.
Asked whether Executive Outcomes was "still on board", Mr Buckingham said
they were "very much on board".
Mr Buckingham denies any formal corporate links with Executive Outcomes and
Sandline.
(c) Copyright 1997 Canjex Publishing Ltd. canada-stockwatch.com |
