ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
A former banker who is a fugitive from Lebanon on embezzlement charges sipped coffee at the White House with President Clinton and other Democratic donors last April.
Roger Tamraz joins a cast of controversial figures who were welcomed into a White House that has since admitted lax security.
The Associated Press has learned that Tamraz was among 10 guests who attended a coffee klatch with Clinton sponsored by the Democratic National Committee on April1. Tamraz's U.S.-based oil company donated $72,000 to the party in 1995 and 1996.
Tamraz, 56, now a U.S. citizen living in New York City, said in a telephone interview Thursday that Clinton aides were aware of the charges filed against him in Lebanon but did not consider them legitimate.
``I don't think anyone takes this seriously in civilized countries,'' he said.
According to magistrate records filed in Beirut, Tamraz was accused by the Lebanese government in the late 1980s of embezzling about $200 million from the collapsed Al Mashreq Bank when he was its chairman.
Lebanon issued an arrest warrant for him in 1989.
Interpol, the international police agency, issued an international arrest warrant in June 1989 at Lebanon's request, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tamraz said that the allegations were fabricated by the Lebanese government in retaliation for his contacts with Israeli government officials. In addition to the bank charges, a Lebanese military tribunal accused him of collaboration with Israel and in 1996 sentenced him in absentia to three years in prison.
``They used the bank fraud for political reasons,'' said Tamraz, a friend of former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel. ``There was no bank fraud at all.''
White House special counsel Lanny Davis declined immediate comment. The Lebanese ambassador to Washington didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
In recent weeks, it has been disclosed that several controversial figures slipped past unsuspecting White House aides into Democratic National Committee events.
Presidential aides said they have made changes to prevent such problems in the future.
Another donor invited to a White House coffee was Jerome Berlin, a longtime Democratic fund-raiser and lawyer from Florida who was once charged with telling clients he could bribe then-Sen. Al Gore.
In 1990, federal prosecutors alleged that Berlin and another attorney tricked their clients out of $225,000 by telling them the money would be used to bribe Gore and Florida officials to end state investigations of their company.
A jury acquitted Berlin of all charges in 1992. There was no accusation that he actually tried to bribe Gore. Berlin has continued raising money for Gore and other Democrats since then. On July 20, 1995, he was on the guest list for a coffee with Gore.
Berlin said Thursday he doesn't recall whether he attended the event but said he has visited the White House several times.
Lorraine Voles, a Gore spokeswoman, said, ``I know that he was acquitted, so I can't imagine that it had any bearing on his relationship with the vice president.''
Other controversial visitors to the White include:
* Wang Jun, a Chinese arms dealer whose invitation to a February 1996 gathering with Clinton was arranged by Democratic Party fund-raiser Charles Yah Lin Trie. The president said recently it was ``clearly inappropriate'' for Wang to attend.
* Arthur Coia, president of the Laborers' International Union, and his wife, Joanne, were guests of the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton after a top Justice Department official told White House aides that the union was being investigated.
* Democratic donor Jorge Cabrera attended a White House function in 1995. Cabrera, a Cuban-born American, was convicted in 1996 of transporting nearly 6,000 pounds of cocaine into this country and sentenced to 19 years in prison. He had been convicted of other felonies in the years before his White House visit.
* Grigory Loutchansky, an Israeli national whose company has been identified by former CIA Director John Deutch as an ``organization associated with Russian criminal activity,'' was photographed standing with Clinton at a 1994 DNC dinner.
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