- Guardian Unlimited,
- Tuesday October 16 2001
Saudi insists group was not al-Qaida front
An influential Saudi businessman named at the weekend by the American and British governments as a terrorist supporter headed a Jersey-based Islamic charity which was revealed by the Guardian two weeks ago as a suspected source of funds for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organisation.
Yassin al-Qadi was among 39 individuals and organisations whose assets should be immediately frozen, the two governments said.
The US treasury said he founded the Muwafaq Foundation which it described as "an al-Qaida front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen. Blessed Relief is the English translation. Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of dollars to Bin Laden through Blessed Relief".
But from his office in Jeddah and
through his prestigious London lawyers at Peter Carter Ruck, Mr Qadi
has vehemently denied the charge,
calling it "a gross violation of
human rights".
He told the Guardian yesterday he was very angry to have been put on the list without the US authorities giving him a chance to respond. "We have nothing to do with Bin Laden," he said. "We have nothing to hide. We are transparent and are ready to open our books even to the intelligence agencies."
Muwafaq, he said, had
been closed six years ago, though it is referred to in UN and German
charity
documents as doing work in the Sudan and Bosnia in 1997 and
1998.
In a strongly worded letter to Sir Andrew Turnbull, the permanent secretary at the Treasury, Mr Carter-Ruck demanded that Mr Qadi's name be taken off the list pending "a proper investigation". The letter repeated his denials and asked for details of what information led to his name being included. "It is difficult to conceive at the present time of a more seriously damaging al legation to make," the letter said.
The foundation was set up as a private company in the Isle of Man in 1991 with Mr Qadi as a director and one of four prominent shareholders. It then, allegedly, was registered in Jersey as a charity in 1992 and started relief work in Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Albania and Afghanistan. It opened a branches in Austria and Germany.
Its status in Jersey remains a mystery. A chartered accountant in the capital, St Helier, told the Guardian she had been asked to act as a mailbox and the charity used her address. "For two years from 1992 I received nothing at all, so I stopped the contract," she said. "The trust deed was drawn up by an English lawyer but it wasn't followed through."
Mr Qadi and the charity have been involved in several controversies. In 1995 Muwafaq's Islamabad office in Pakistan was raided by the police and its local director arrested due to suspicions of connections with Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York two years before.
The director was released without charge three months later. No further action was taken against the charity, but its operations in Islamabad came to a halt, according to Muwafaq's Pakistani lawyer.
In 1996 the magazine al-Watan al-Arabi said Bin Laden told it that the Muwafaq Society in Zagreb, Croatia, was one of the humanitarian bodies he supported. Mr Qadi said he doubted the interview was genuine.
In 1998 Mr Qadi was named in a civil forfeiture case in Chicago as the source of $820,000 (£558,000) funds for a money laundering scheme for the Palestinian group Hamas. Part of the money, according to the FBI, was used to finance Hamas terrorism.
Mr Qadi says this was nonsense. The money, he said, was for an institute for the study of the Koran. "The money is still in the United States. It never went to Hamas," he said.
Mr Qadi has a big investment portfolio in Saudi Arabia and abroad. He is an executive with a Saudi company, MM Badkook, that supplied 15,000 meals a day to Kuwaiti and US troops during the Gulf war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/oct/16/charities.disasterresponse
Counterterrorism Blog: Its time to Put Yasin Al Kadi Out of Business!
Its time to Put Yasin Al Kadi Out of Business!
This note follows up on Doug Farah�s and Evan Kohlmann�s excellent posts concerning the US Treasury designation of Dr. Abdul Latif Saleh, a close business associate of Saudi billionaire Yasin Al Kadi (aka al-Qadi). This designation is quite intriguing. Saleh worked out of Tirana, Albania where he was a business partner and close associate of Al-Kadi. During the days of the Bosnian War and subsequent Kosovo conflict, Albania was an active staging ground for radical salafist groups that sought to recruit for Al Qaeda and to insert their influence and force into these conflicts. Saleh's designation comes some 14 months after he came to the attention of Albanian authorities.
Working on a tip from US authorities, Albanian police moved quickly in June 2004 to freeze a 2.4 million Euro account in Saleh�s name. The money was about to be transferred to a certain Jordanian, Hamza Abu Ratah, about whom little is yet known. The Albanian authorities also seized several apartment buildings owned by Al Qadi. Last June Al-Qadi challenged these seizures in Albanian court, but was rebuffed. He proved more successful in Turkish courts which allowed him to retain control over his Turkish based companies (See my blog on this subject.
This latest designation should be viewed as aimed as much at Al-Kadi as Saleh, who apparently acted as one of his agents. Al Kadi, it should be recalled was one of the first al Qaeda financier's to be identified and designated after 9/11.
He was the founder and key financial supporter of Muwafaq and its Blessed Relief branch charities that were implicated directly in financing for the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. But, despite designation by the US Treasury Department and the UN Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, Al Kadi has been able to run his worldwide business empire as if such designation made little matter. The UN designation requires that all countries
�Freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of these individuals, including funds derived from property owned or controlled, directly or indirectly by them or by persons action on their behalf or at their direction, and to ensure that neither these nor any other funds, financial assets or economic resources are made available directly or indirectly, for such person�s benefit, by their nationals� See UN Security Council Resolution 1617 (2005)
But these restrictions have apparently done little to slow Al-Kadi down. Before 9/11, Al Kadi's extensive business empire extended globally. He also had extensive interests in the United States. Some of these, like his interest in the Boston Software firm PTECH only came to light after 9/11.
PTECH remains under local and federal investigation. Other US investments reported included Global Mining Resources, in Nevada. Al Kadi reported continues as Chairman of Saudi National Consulting Center and Qordoba Real Estate Co. based in Saudi Arabia, as well as chairman of Caravan Co. based in Turkey. He is also a board member of Himont Chemical based in Pakistan and Cariba Bank based in Kazakhstan.
At least until recently, al-Kadi served as Vice President
of the Saudi Arabian company M.M. Badkook Co.
He also reported had
extensive holdings in South Africa, and other areas of Africa.
He
continues to run a number of these business from his offices in
Jedda.
When, if ever, will the UN Sanctions put him out of business?
Dallah Avco - 9/11 Encyclopedia
Mitre Corporation - 9/11 Encyclopedia
Mahfouz, Khalid Bin - 9/11 Encyclopedia
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Al Baraka Bank - 9/11 - charity al-Qaeda, Ptech, al-Kadi, Mahfouz, Bin Laden
Blessed Relief - 9/11 Ptech al-KadiChicago-Connection - 9/11 Encyclopedia
IS DEFENSE CONTRACTOR MITRE CORP THE TROJAN HORSE OF 9/11?
FBI Told to stop investigations on al Qaeda - September 11