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| Family and friends of Chris Cramer maintain that there was no way he would have taken his own life and he was likely killed for being a threat to a profitable arms deal. |
The mystery surrounding the death
of an American defense contractor at a Saudi Arabia hotel mounted Friday amid
speculation about what happened in the days leading up to his death.
Local authorities in the Saudi
city of Tabuk claimed that Christopher Cramer, 50, likely committed suicide
after his body plummeted from a third floor window of the Sahara Makarim Hotel.
But family and friends maintain
there was no way the New Hampshire native would take his own life and that he
likely was murdered for being a threat to a lucrative arms deal.
“The problem was with the
customer,” Cramer family attorney and longtime friend of the victim, Noah Mandell, told FoxNews.com.
“The missile system was already sold to the Saudi company and they were
complaining that it wasn’t working. He was basically sent to see if he could
prove that they were firing it incorrectly.”
Mandell also said he believes
that the Tow Missile system was sabotaged before Cramer arrived with a
colleague in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 8.
“When Chris showed up everything
was inoperable,” he said.
Officials with Cramer’s employer,
Kollsman Inc., said that the systems were not malfunctioning and nothing was
tampered with.
“They showed up, they helped put
it together and the demonstrations went without a hitch, “Clark Friese, a
spokesman for Kollsman, told FoxNews.com. “Everything was operating and fully
functional. Chris had even posted a video of one of the missile firings.”
However, text messages Cramer
sent to family members from Saudi Arabia indicated some of the prior equipment
could have been in poor condition.
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A picture taken by cramer while
testing as TOW missile system in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.
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“We fired 6 missiles with one
near miss,” he said in a message to his nephew. “Their M109s are old and full
of problems.”
“Lol easy fix or gonna take some
time,” Cramer’s nephew, Christopher Arsenault, replied.
“They want to check out firing
some of the new tow 2A RF link aeros and some extended range tow. I'll be
shooting them till Thursday and if they like the performance of our stuff,
we're gonna get an order for a ton of upgrades,” Cramer texted back.
Mandell also theorized that the
company that bought the TOW system, Saudi-based Global Defense Systems wanted
the equipment to malfunction so they could recoup some of their money they
spent on the system.
“It’s like a used car scam,” he
said. “Like taking a car for a test drive and stopping to pop open the hood and
crossing wires.
“Then you’re paying $5000 for a
car that’s worth ten.”
The circumstances surrounding
Cramer’s death have made it difficult for the family to have his body
repatriated to the U.S. for an autopsy but Friese told FoxNews.com that
progress on that front has been made.
“We have been calling every
single day, working with the embassy,” he said. “We have finally gotten all the
needed info to his family and we have given them the money for repatriation and
an autopsy.
“It’s just a matter of moving
through the process at this point.”
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