[Nasional-m] FBI looks at Saudi royal gift for a hijacker connect

[Ambon]

 FBI looks at Saudi royal gift for a hijacker connection
   Susan Schmidt and Mike Allen/WP The Washington Post  Monday, November 25,
2002

WASHINGTON The FBI is investigating whether charitable contributions by the
wife of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States may have
indirectly benefited two of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
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Saudi officials acknowledged Saturday that Princess Haifa Faisal, the wife
of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador, gave money to the family
of Osama Bassnan, a Saudi citizen, when they were in the United States.
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One of Bassnan's friends, Omar Bayoumi, helped two of the Sept. 11
hijackers, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, with introductions to the
Muslim community when they arrived in San Diego in 2000. Bayoumi hosted a
party and helped Almihdhar and Alhazmi with rent payments.
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But Saudi officials said the money was donated to help defray the cost of
medical treatments for the Bassnan family. It was one of many charitable
contributions that the princess, daughter of the late King Faisal, makes
regularly to Saudis who need money in the United States, they said. There is
no evidence any of the money actually made it into the hands of the
hijackers, officials said Saturday.
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[Adel Jubeir, a Saudi foreign policy adviser and frequent government
spokesman, appeared Sunday on an ABC interview program and dismissed the
idea that Princess Haifa might knowingly have funded someone with terrorist
links as "preposterous," "crazy" and "outrageous," the IHT reported from
Washington. The money, as far as the princess knew, was intended to help pay
medical costs in what was a common Saudi practice, he said.
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[Asked whether Saudi Arabia now intended to detain and question the men,
Jubeir replied indirectly, saying that the Saudis had received no requests
"from any friendly governments" to detain them or to question them. "The FBI
investigated this, the FBI let them go." That was unlikely to have happened
had the men given money to terrorists, he said.]
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The possible link comes just as the United States is trying to line up Saudi
Arabia's help for a likely confrontation with Iraq. Relations between the
two countries have been delicate since Sept. 11, 2001. Fifteen of the 19
hijackers were Saudis, and questions have arisen about whether Saudi
government officials or private foundations may have helped and may still be
helping fund terrorists.
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"All of this raises alarms," one senior administration official said.
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The use of Saudi air bases was critical to the swift U.S. victory in the
Gulf War, and President George W. Bush will need to use them again if he
leads an attack on Iraq, which shares most of Saudi Arabia's northern
border. Saudi officials have made no such commitment this time and have sent
contradictory signals about their intentions.
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An official of the Saudi Embassy said Saturday that the princess had
provided $15,000 in 1998 to Bassnan and had followed up with $2,000 monthly
stipend checks to Bassnan's wife, Majida Ibrahim Ahmad, while she was living
in Falls Church, Virginia, and Baltimore.
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Bassnan was deported to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 17 and his wife was deported to
her native Jordan the same day, both on visa violations, officials said.
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The checks were issued from the princess's account at Riggs Bank in
Washington. The Saudi Embassy called the president of Riggs on Friday night
after learning of the FBI investigation from media inquiries prompted by a
report posted on Newsweek magazine's Web site. Bank officials opened the
bank so that embassy employees could spend the night going through the
checks that had been issued from the princess's account.
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Officials were still going through the records to see if any checks sent to
the Bassnan family had been endorsed over to Bayoumi. Some of the checks,
officials said, were endorsed over to third parties, perhaps members of the
Bassnan family.
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A congressional panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks took note of the
payments from the princess in the course of reviewing FBI files, sources
said. Panel members were not satisfied that the bureau had fully examined
the money trail there and asked the bureau for more information.
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The FBI and the Justice Department had firmly resisted a committee request
to declassify the information. They now say they cannot comment on it
because it is a matter of continuing investigation.
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Saudi Arabia's willingness to cooperate in Washington's war on terrorism has
been sporadic, and hostility toward the United States runs high on the
kingdom's streets. But administration officials said they had seen hopeful
signs recently.
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The officials said the Saudi government had aided efforts to prevent the
export of money to terrorists, often through charitable front groups. But
the officials said that Saudi Arabia still needed to do a lot more and
remained a worrisome source of financing for terrorists.
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President Vladimir Putin of Russia raised an uncomfortable subject for Bush
by publicly questioning Saudi Arabia's commitment to fighting terrorism as
the two of them appeared together Friday. "We should not forget," Putin
said, that Saudi Arabia was the home country of 15 of the 19 hijackers in
the Sept. 11 attacks.