Mike Feghali

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Mike Feghali (born in Beirut, Lebanon) is an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the supervisor of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish desks of the Washington, D.C. field office, upon which FBI agents nationwide rely for translating documents and audio recordings from those languages into English. Feghali, who has worked for the FBI for several years, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He holds several degrees in foreign languages.

Sibel Edmonds, a Turkish-American woman and former FBI translator herself, has leveled a number of serious accusations against Feghali, including under oath in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission and in a subsequent open letter to the Commission's chairman, Thomas Kean. Some of them are:

Feghali, along with employees under his supervision, routinely mistranslated documents, or did not translate them at all, if they involved information detrimental to certain undisclosed organizations, of which Feghali or others might be agents.
He hired unqualified personnel as translators, many of whom are his friends or relatives, despite a lack of proficiency in either English or the foreign language required for the position.
He and his subordinates conspired to deliberately create a backlog of documents awaiting translation, thus seriously hindering ongoing investigations. This was allegedly done for the purpose of creating the impression that the translators were overwhelmed with work, thus necessitating a higher level of funding, which would be used to hire additional cronies to lucrative translator positions.
He and other FBI translators threw a party shortly after the 9/11 attacks against the U.S., at which traditional celebratory date-filled cookies baked by Feghali's wife were served. During this event an employee loudly proclaimed his joy by shouting, in front of Feghali and others, that the U.S. had received "a taste of what they've been giving the Middle East."

The report published by the 9/11 Commission did not address these allegations.