- WASHINGTON - CIA officials
Wednesday rejected a French newspaper report that one of their agents
allegedly
met with terrorist mastermind Osama bin laden in July.
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- The Saudi underwent treatment for kidney problems at
an American hospital in Dubai, France's Le Figaro newspaper reported
Wednesday.
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- "Complete and utter nonsense," said Anya
Guilsher,
a spokeswoman for the Central Intelligence Agency. "It's false, and
I told Le Figaro that, too."
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- Bin Laden reportedly checked into American Hospital
Dubai,
a 100-bed, acute-care general hospital, on July 4 and stayed until July
14. He arrived from Quetta, Pakistan, accompanied by his doctor and a close
aide, possibly Ayman el Zawahiri, a leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, the
newspaper said.
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- Le Figaro cited a "professional partner" linked
to the hospital's management as its source. Besides a stream of local
dignitaries
and family members, bin Laden's visitors included a CIA agent, the
newspaper
claimed. The agent was widely recognized locally, Le Figaro said, and later
told several friends of the meeting.
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- The alleged American agent was called back to the CIA's
McLean, Va., headquarters on July 15, a day after bin Laden checked out,
Le Figaro reported, citing "authorized sources."
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- Why bin Laden would have met with a CIA officer, or vice
versa, is unclear. Even before the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United
States, the Saudi millionaire figured among America's top terrorist
suspects,
blamed for several earlier plots against U.S. targets, including the 1993
World Trade Center bombing.
-
- But the French newspaper asserted that a CIA-bin Laden
link stretched back years, and the paper appeared to suggest that bin Laden
gave the agency information regarding future terrorist strikes. "The
Dubai meeting is therefore a logical follow to a 'certain American
policy,'"
the newspaper said.
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- In particular, the newspaper noted that just two weeks
after bin Laden checked out of the Dubai hospital, United Arab Emirates
security agents arrested the alleged mastermind of a plot to blow up the
American Embassy in Paris. The suspect, a French-Algerian named Djamel
Beghal, earlier confessed to receiving his orders from bin Laden, according
to French news media citing his written confession.
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- An American diplomat in Paris refused to comment on the
Figaro article, or on reported allegations of an emergency meeting in Paris
in August between high-level French and American intelligence officials.
"We'll just not comment on any of that stuff," he said. "We
can't talk about meetings like that that may or may not have happened."
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- Le Figaro
said bin Laden had serious kidney problems,
and reportedly had a dialysis machine imported to Afghanistan last year.
Citing a March 2000 report by Asia Week, the newspaper said bin Laden's
illness stemmed from "a renal infection that has spread to the liver,
and needs specialized treatment."
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- The head of the Dubai hospital's Urology Department,
Terry Callaway, reportedly refused to answer questions about bin Laden's
alleged stay. Radio France reported Wednesday that the American hospital
has denied bin Laden was treated there.
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- Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
- All rights reserved.
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