Local reporter arrested on terrorism charges

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

By PJH Staff

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-A valley newspaper reporter met the wrong people at the wrong time and could be facing a lifetime prison sentence because of it, a spokesman from the U.S. embassy in Austria said in a telephone interview today.

Ken Banyan, a 28-year-old Jackson resident visiting Austria, was arrested on charges of espionage for smuggling vital information about a wife-exchange program based out of the former Soviet Union that is thought to be at the core of a massive terrorist attempt on the lives of millions of American citizens in New York and Los Angeles.

“His future is hanging in the balance,” Harry Herman, the embassy’s press liaison said. “He did a stupid, stupid thing.”

The documents he carried would have solidified the importation to America of no less than 17 female terrorists who had been trained by a cell of Al Qaeda that ran a terrorist training camp in a remote region of Kyrgyzstan.

The Kyrg women were sold to American men as wives, and were being shipped to Los Angeles and New York to carry out a terrorist attack. To avoid homeland security suspicions, the Kyrg women were “laundered” through a refugee community located in Vienna, Austria. They were awaiting specially prepared papers to bring them from Vienna to America.

Sources think Banyan met the mastermind behind the operation, Georg Kastle, on his flight to Vienna, where he was convinced to take and deliver the papers. He executed the job in exchange for a free wife that was to be sent to his new apartment in Vienna. Banyan’s lawyers say he had no idea what information was contained in the papers, but admit Kastle charmed him with offers of a “beautiful wife from the former Soviet block.”

The papers were discovered when Banyan went through customs, and had not followed the strict orders given him by Kastle.

Banyan’s trial will begin May 12 at an international court in Vienna.
President Obama’s office has not yet released an official statement on Banyan’s status.

Homeland Security officials said that a not-guilty verdict could be the more dire consequence for Banyan, who unwittingly foiled the largest terrorist operation in the world’s history and has angered many dangerous people. PJH
PERMALINK:
Local reporter arrested on terrorism charges | Planet JH News Article: Flipside

Leave a Comment