WASHINGTON: Autho­ri­ties announced covert lobbying and arms dealing charges on Monday against a US-Israeli analyst who has accused President Joe Biden’s son of corruption.

Federal prosecutors in New York charged Gal Luft, the head of a think tank outside the US capital, of engaging “in multiple, serious, criminal schemes”, according to a Justice Department statement.

Luft has levelled allegations of corruption against the family of Biden, and Republican politicians called the charges against Luft an attempt to intimidate a key witness.

According to prosecutors, Luft “subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking US government official”. Furthermore, Luft “acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement”, the statement said.

Luft was arrested in February in Cyprus on US charges, but fled after he was released on bail awaiting extradition proceedings, prosecutors said. Luft remains at large and the Justice Depart­ment is asking for information on his whereabouts.

In a video published by the New York Post last week, Luft said that in 2019 he provided evidence to US Justice Department and FBI officials on what he said were the Biden family’s financial transactions with a Chinese energy conglomerate.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson accused the US government of a cover-up.

“He’s got a wealth of infor­mation. But they never followed up on that meeting,” Johnson said recently on Fox News. “Instead, they arrested him in Cyprus to silence him.”

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2023