The owner’s lawyer said during a hearing on Wednesday that an FBI agent was the victim of a “attack” by Havana Syndrome in Key West, citing new information that three press outlets had just published that suggested Russia may be attacking American officials at home and abroad.
An effective FBI special agent, identified just as Carrie, who appeared in mask in , a CBS 60 Minutes show , on March 31 about Havana Syndrome, told the system she was “hit” in an unknown place in Florida in what she believed was one of the strange incidents linked to the thus- called Havana Syndrome.
She was looking into a alleged Russian detective who had been detained in the Florida Keys in 2020 at the time. She said she was “hit” suddenly in California a year later.
During the Wednesday reading organized by the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, her attorney, Mark Zaid, referred to her “incident” in Important West. In his whole created evidence, Zaid, who was was even interviewed by 60 Minutes, wrote that the FBI representative appeared in the display to explore “her attacks that occurred in Key West, Florida”.
When asked about domestic Havana Syndrome, he responded that” a number of FBI personnel down in Florida” and CIA intelligence agents have been targets in D.C. and northern Virginia.
A number of “anomalous health incidents”- the term used by the United States government to describe Havana Syndrome- have been reported by U.S. intelligence officials and diplomats all over the world. They have reported experiencing pressure, noise, or a series of symptoms that include headaches, vision issues, migraines, and cognitive deficits. Some people received traumatic brain injuries.
Zaid claimed that some people have already passed away and that he would not give more information to protect the privacy of their loved ones.
The incidents first became public in Havana in 2016, leading to the name for the battery of symptoms, but a case in Frankfurt in 2014, first reported by the Miami Herald, pushed back the timeline.
After the Havana ACT was passed by Congress in 2021, U.S. government agencies are offering compensation to some of the affected people. However, some intelligence agencies, led by the CIA, released a report last year that concluded it was unlikely that a foreign adversary was attacking American officials, even though some of those agencies had little faith in the report’s findings.
Scientific studies have published contradictory information, frustrating the victims. A panel of experts reviewing a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health for people with Havana Syndrome has been suspended while it is being reviewed by an independent board following complaints from participants. The study was first made public by the Miami Herald.
According to some of those scientific studies, there is no known technology that can cause the injuries that victims have described. Others, like a study commissioned by the U. S. government by , the National Academy of Sciences, concluded the opposite: that radiofrequency was likely used and that the technology is commercially available.
A detailed investigation that could have connected a sabotage unit within the Russian military intelligence services to at least four Havana Syndrome incidents was co-authored by Russian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who spoke at the hearing on Wednesday and worked with Der Spiegel and 60 Minutes.
He went on to describe what he said was a 1991 version.
He gestured in response,” It appeared to be a satellite dish with a unit this size attached to it,” adding that it was a small size. It could fit nicely in a car trunk or even a large backpack, the author writes.
Later, he added that a” crude” version of this weapon could be put together “inexpensively”.
Zaid and Greg Edgreen, a retired lieutenant colonel who was in charge of a Defense Intelligence Agency investigation into Havana Syndrome, made reference to Russia’s history of using microwaves to radiate through Moscow in their accounts to Congress.
Grozev claimed in a statement for The Insider that he had obtained a document revealing that” Unit 29155,” a Russian GRU military intelligence unit, had been awarded in 2017 for the creation of” a non-lethal acoustic weapon suitable for use in urban combat.”
On Wednesday, he offered a novel theory about Russia’s motivation to developed such weapon.
He claimed that a former Russian intelligence agent had informed him that since the publication of his investigation, they have been working on developing energy weapons ever since the 1980s because, according to the former agent,” we thought the Americans were doing that to us and we wanted to develop a countertechnology.”
Grozev said he does n’t think there are at least 68 cases of Havana Syndrome that can be exaggerated by citing pre-existing conditions or other well-known causes.
The initial revelations from Grozev and 60 Minutes have reopened the debate over Havana Syndrome and prompted Congress to request more information about what they know.
The problem, Zaid said, is that most of the relevant information is classified. He believes that the Executive Branch, particularly at the behest of and through CIA officials, is not truthfully reporting what it knows because he has access to classified information on these incidents.
” The evidence that exists in the classified arena… directly contradicts the public conclusions”, he added. ” Numerous federal agencies have intentionally withheld information even from sister agencies in order to influence and manipulate their decision-making process, deliberately delayed collecting or disregarding crucial credible evidence, and have failed to fully engage in substantive investigations.”
He resisted using the word” cover-up” in interviews with 60 Minutes, telling lawmakers to check whether the blocking of classified information serves legitimate national security purposes.
According to Edgreen, who went so far as to directly cite Russia as the culprit on Wednesday, he told the congressional committee that he discovered a very strong Russian “nexus” in the 60 Minutes show.
The intelligence community assessment “is dead wrong”, he said. ” It’s my firm belief we already have attribution. Right now is the time for action, for retribution”.
He attributed the investigation’s failures to the lack of resources and CIA analysts. He claimed that the government was “gaslighting” victims of Havana Syndrome because it did n’t want to deal with the ramifications of attributing these events.
He cited the U.S. government’s reluctance to acknowledge war-related injuries related to the use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War or burn pits in the Middle East as” the gaslighting of… survivors continues to this day in some government agencies, as history repeats itself.
Edgreen now heads a company, Advanced Echelon LLC, whose goal is to “take care” of Havana Syndrome survivors. He and Zaid urged Congress to make it easier for the affected to get medical care.
” America’s best men and women in national security are being targeted and neutralized around the world in a global campaign”, Edgreen said before citing Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, who wrote in a 2023 article that in recent years, “hundreds” of foreign intelligence agents and people involved in” subversive activities” against Russia “have been neutralized”.
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