... deserved consideration:
New Saudi ambassador summonsed over Sept 11
By David Wastell, Diplomatic Correspondent
(Filed: 01/12/2002)
An American court has issued a summons against the next Saudi Ambassador to Britain alleging that in his previous job he helped to fund Afghanistan's Taliban regime while it was sheltering Osama bin Laden, lawyers said yesterday. <snip>
The previous Saudi ambassador to Britain, Dr Ghazi Algosaibi, was recalled to Riyadh in September after widespread fury at poems and public comments by him apparently sympathising with Palestinian suicide bombers.
Prince Turki, who courted bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and maintained close contacts with the Taliban regime, was replaced as the Saudis' head of intelligence two weeks before the September 11 attacks, after almost 25 years in the post. <snip>
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/01/wsaud01.xmlBush invites Saudi ambassador to Texas
Published: Wednesday, August 28, 2002
President George W. Bush meets with Saudi Arabian ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan at the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas, Tuesday.
<snip> Bush used the meeting to try to quell Saudi concerns over escalating anti-Saudi rhetoric in the United States. In July a policy analyst from the RAND Corp. told an influential advisory panel at the Pentagon that the U.S. should confront Saudi Arabia over its ties to terrorist organizations.
"The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader," the analyst said. "Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies." <snip>
http://www.dailylobo.com/news/2002/08/28/News/Bush-Invites.Saudi.Ambassador.To.Texas-263600.shtmlFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 26, 2002
... Published reports this week have indicated that the Saudi Arabian Embassy, diplomatic personnel and possibly even Princess Haifa bint Faisal may have provided financial support to Nawaf Alhzami and Khalid Almidhar, who helped hijack American Airlines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon. According to these reports, in early 2001, the Princess began sending monthly payments of $2,000 to a woman named Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, who signed the cashier's checks over to the wife of Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi Arabian native who befriended and provided financial support to Alhzami and Almidhar upon their arrival in the United States ...
http://www.house.gov/fossella/pr021126.htmNovember 29, 2002
EXCLUSIVE
The road to Riyadh
A stillborn FBI inquiry and a money trail from the Saudi Embassy to two of the 9/11 hijackers
By Gloria Borger, Edward T. Pound, and Linda Robinson
<snip> Even before investigators began tracing the cashier's checks from Princess Haifa, government officials told U.S. News, FBI and treasury investigators had begun formal inquiries into the flow of funds through the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Bank accounts of the embassy and embassy personnel enjoy diplomatic immunity. But the government officials say investigators have taken a number of steps–not including electronic surveillance–to attempt to monitor money flows through the embassy. Of particular concern, several officials said, is cash that may have been transported under diplomatic seal from Riyadh to Washington.
Separately, U.S. government officials say, FBI and treasury investigators believe that as much as $100 million has flowed from Saudi Arabia to terrorist organizations in recent years. "We're talking about major-league businessmen who have ties to the royal family,'' says a senior treasury official. "Over the years, they've put funds into a lot of different mechanisms–business charities, moneymaking ventures–and routed them through offshore havens. They distance themselves from the money–it gets washed again and finally disbursed to the bad guys.'' <snip>
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/features/saudi_021129.htmSHOW: FOX ON THE RECORD WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (22:11)
May 20, 2003 Tuesday
Transcript # 052002cb.260
<snip> BURTON: <snip> According to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police report, the Saudi government is giving, through intermediaries, between $1 million and $2 million a month to al Qaeda terrorists. <snip> We know that the Saudi ambassador's wife gave $130,000 to a Virginia woman, who gave it to one of the terrorists of 9/11 -- part of that group. <snip> And you add all these things together -- there was a woman who was married to a terrorist, and we wanted to have her before a federal grand jury, and the Saudi ambassador in here, Prince Bandar, gave her a passport and sent her and her five children back to Saudi Arabia so she wouldn't have to testify. <snip>
http://www.house.gov/burton/transcript52003.htmReport traces ties of Saudi ambassador's wife to hijackers
James Risen NYT
Monday, July 28, 2003
Payments from the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States to the wife of a Saudi man living in San Diego sharply increased after a close associate of the San Diego man began to aid two of the September 11 hijackers, a classified congressional report has found, according to people who have read it. <snip>
http://www.iht.com/articles/104264.htmlSaudi Spy Link To Al Qaeda Or 911?
WASHINGTON, August 2, 2003
<snip> FBI officials are seeking to question, anew, Saudi businessman Omar al-Bayoumi, who during his time in San Diego threw a welcoming party for eventual hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi and who put down money for their deposit and first month's rent. <snip>
For instance, Prince Bandar, the U.S. ambassador to the United States, and his wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wrote tens of thousands of dollars of checks to a Saudi named Osama Basnan and his wife, Magda Ibrahim Dweikat, who were in San Diego around the time of the hijackers stay.
Al-Jubeir said Bandar gave charitable donations to Basnan to help cover his wife's medical bills starting in 1998 and that al-Faisal separately gave regular monthly payments to Dweikat, who used her maiden name that did not call attention to her marriage to Basnan.
Al-Jubeir said Saudi investigators traced every payment - which totaled more than $100,000 - and found evidence two or three of the princess' checks to Dweikat were signed over to al-Bayoumi's wife. Saudi officials found no evidence that money was transferred to the hijackers or even used by al-Bayoumi when he assisted the hijackers, he said. <snip>
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/03/world/main566412.shtmlAugust 27, 2003, 8:45 a.m.
Send Bandar Home
The U.S. can change the face of Saudi Arabia.
By Stephen Schwartz
<snip. Yet notwithstanding continuing revelations about Saudi funding of terror, Bandar remains untouchable in Washington, along with his wife, Princess Haifa. Although her convoluted financial links to Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, the two lead hijackers among the 15 Saudis out of the 19 9/11 terrorists, attracted widespread attention late last year, she somehow fell through the cracks when the congressional report on the terror conspiracy was recently released. <snip>
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schwartz082703.aspBank with close ties to Bush administration engulfed in scandal
By Joseph Kay
24 August 2004
The Justice Department announced on Friday that it is launching a criminal investigation into Riggs Bank. <snip>
The Newsweek article states: “About two months after al-Bayoumi began aiding Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Newsweek has learned, al-Bayoumi’s wife began receiving regular stipends, often monthly and usually around $2,000 and totaling tens of thousands of dollars. The money came in the form of cashier’s checks, purchased from Washington’s Riggs Bank by Princess Haifa bin Faisal, the daughter of the late King Faisal and wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi envoy who is a prominent Washington figure and personal friend of the Bush family. The checks were sent to a woman named Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, who in turn signed over many of them to al-Bayoumi’s wife...” <snip>
The bank was eventually fined $25 million in May 2004 for violating these regulations. However, the FBI has issued a statement saying it found no evidence of terrorist financing. The Bush administration has refused to release the intelligence behind the investigation, citing “national security concerns.” <snip>
Even after the FBI’s accusations in July 2003, the bank continued to allow massive cash transfers by the Saudi ambassador. Under pressure, the bank announced this past March that it was closing all Saudi accounts. <snip>
http://wsws.org/articles/2004/aug2004/rigg-a24.shtmlFunding Terror
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x71845