Funding Terror: Investigating the role of Saudi banks

Offshore, Scoops  

In These Times, Dec 20, 2002

Having a quarter of the world‘s oil reserves may mean never having to say you‘re sorry to Washington. Instead, when Newsweek reported in December that checks from the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States had been sent to associates of two of the September 11 hijackers, Saudi and Washington officials revved up their spin machines.

When the reports surfaced, Haifa bint Faisal, wife of Saudi ambassador Bandar bin Sultan, acknowledged that she sent nearly $150,000 to the wife of a Saudi living in San Diego. The recipient, Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, signed over some of the checks to a friend whose husband, Omar al-Bayoumi (with Dweikat‘s husband), helped hijackers Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi find housing in San Diego, open bank accounts, get Social Security cards, pay expenses and arrange flying lessons in Florida.

Behind the faces of Annan’s finance and development gurus

Offshore, Scoops  

Earth Times News Service, Dec 19, 2002.

There is no little irony in United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan appointing Robert Rubin (shown here), Robert Rubina chairman of Citibank, to serve on an advisory panel that will propose how to help poor countries where over a billion people suffer abject poverty. He might have some interesting conversations with another panel member, David Bryer, director of Oxfam. Oxfam recently condemned practices of banks such as Citibank as a major part of developing countries’ problems.