A former Special Forces commando made millions of dollars carrying out assassinations for the United Arab Emirates, new court documents claim.
Abram Golan, a mercenary allegedly behind a botched plot to kill a member of Yemen’s House of Representatives, has been named a defendant by Anssaf Ali Mayo, who barely escaped death at Golan’s hands, the papers allege.
In August 2015, Golan, along with former Navy SEAL Issac Gilmore, started Spear Operations group in Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego.
The two pitched and reached an agreement with the UAE to carry out “targeted assassinations” on the empire’s behalf, the lawsuit claims.
In return, Spear would allegedly be paid $1.5 million a month plus bonuses for successful killings.
The deal was allegedly brokered over lunch at an Italian restaurant in the officers’ club of a UAE military base in Abu Dubai by Mohammed Dahlan, a former security chief for the Palestinian Authority.
“There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition,” Golan allegedly said, according to the papers.
Once the deal with the UAE was reached, the two recruited former members of the military, a key point in their pitch to the UAE, including Dale Comstock, a former member of US Army Special Forces, who was paid $40,000 a month plus bonuses to run the killing team.
The group was assembled by the December. They allegedly loaded on to a chartered jet at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and flew to Yemen with body armor and specialized tools to prepare explosives.
They also allegedly packed a few weeks’ worth of military “meals ready to eat,” and three cases of Basil Hayden’s since it would be impossible to get any alcohol in Yemen.
Per the lawsuit, their main target was Mayo, who was at the top of the list to eliminate because he was a member of the al-Islah party, Yemen’s second-largest political group, which is linked to the UAE’s enemy the Muslim Brotherhood.
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The alleged plan was to set off explosives at the al-Islah political party headquarters in Aden, where he worked, and kill off any survivors with small firearms, the papers say.
Drone footage captured the dramatic assassination attempt. The team drove up to the headquarters where Comstock allegedly placed an explosive charge loaded with shrapnel and detonated the device.
A huge explosion rocked the building, shots were fired, and then the footage showed a second explosion caused by a booby trapped SUV designed to add to the destruction.
“I was gonna try to open the door, throw a couple hand grenades, and then just go in there and shoot everyone,” Comstock said, according to the lawsuit.
Mayo, had been told his life was in danger and fled moments before the explosion ripped through the building and survived.
He claims he suffered “psychological and emotional trauma” from the event and now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia.
Golan allegedly plotted hits for the UAE from a $7 million mega mansion in a ritzy San Diego suburb next to a luxury golf course.
The 7,000 square foot spread featured five bedrooms, five baths, four fireplaces and a resort-style pool. There was a wood paneled office, breathtaking views of the course and serene fountains.
In one meeting at the ritzy enclave Golan met with Comstock, who had been a member of the US Army Special Forces, the suit claims.
Golen told Comstock his company Spear had been hired by the UAE to carry out killings on behalf of the country and asked Comstock to be head of the targeted assassination program, the papers allege.
He then allegedly put $40,000 on the table. Comstock took the money and the position, the court papers claim. He was paid $40,000 a month plus bonuses, according to the lawsuit.
Golan also hired Gilmore as COO of Spear in October 2015. Gilmore had been decommissioned from the US Military in 2011 for accidentally shooting a Navy Seal during a training exercise.
Since 2016, Mayo has lived apart from his wife and children who still live in Yemen. He sees them once a year, the papers say.
He’s seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees, and a court order that stops the killing team from targeting him.
Golan, Gilmore, and Comstock are all listed as defendants. The papers say Gilmore is a US citizen and resident of San Diego and Golen, an Israeli-Hungarian citizen, now lives in Westport, Ct.
Comstock is a US citizen and lives in Indonesia, the lawsuit says.
According to Golan, the Spear killing team continued to assassinate targets in Yemen requested by the UAE and was responsible for a number of high profile assassinations after the botched attempt on Mayo, according to the lawsuit.
A UN group of experts states in the papers that it “found reasonable grounds to believe that the United Arab Emirates are responsible for the 10 assassinations in Aden it investigated.”
The UAE’s intervention into Yemen is attributed to three reason in the lawsuit. The first states given Iran’s support of the Houthis, the UAE sought to prevent Iran from expanding its influence into Yemen.
The second points to UAE’s “trading ambitions” and desire to control the Gulf of Aden, so they would be able to bypass the strait of Hormuz, “which Iran has frequently threatened to shut down”, the papers say.
The third, says UAE wanted to eliminate the al-Islah, a Yemeni political party that Mayo was a member of.
