- (LPAC)--Between April 1998 and May 2002, between $51,000
and $73,000 in checks and cashier checks were provided by the Saudi Ambassador
to the United States and his wife to two families in southern California
who in turn bankrolled at least two of the 9-11 hijackers. The story was
investigated by the 9-11 Commission but never fully resolved, and remains,
to this day, one of the key unanswered questions concerning the backing
for the worst terrorist attack to ever occur on U.S. soil.
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- According to numerous news accounts and the records of
the 9-11 Commission, in April 1998, a Saudi national named Osama Basnan
wrote to the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C. seeking help for his wife,
Majeda Dweikat, who needed surgery for a thyroid condition. Prince Bandar
bin-Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador, wrote a check for $15,000 to Basnan.
Beginning in December 1999, Princess Haifa, the wife of Prince Bandar,
began sending regular monthly cashier checks to Majeda Dweikat, in amounts
ranging from $2,000 to $3,500. Many of these checks were signed over to
Manal Bajadr, the wife of Omar al-Bayoumi, another Saudi living in the
San Diego area.
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- Around New Year's 2000, two other Saudi nationals, Nawaf
Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar arrived at Los Angeles International Airport,
where they were greeted by al-Bayoumi, provided with cash, and outfitted
with an apartment, Social Security ID cards and other financial assistance.
Al-Bayoumi helped the two Saudi men enroll in flight school in Florida.
Two months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, al-Bayoumi moved to England,
and shortly after that, he disappeared altogether. But before his disappearance,
and within days of the 9-11 attacks, agents of New Scotland Yard, working
in conjunction with the FBI, raided al-Bayoumi's apartment in England and
found papers hidden beneath the floorboards, according to Newsweek magazine,
that had the phone numbers of several officials at the Saudi embassy in
Washington. Al-Bayoumi was suspected by the Arab community in the San Diego
area of being an agent of Saudi intelligence, who kept tabs on Saudi residents
in the area, particularly Saudi students attending college in southern
California.
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- Sources have told LPAC researchers that Basnan was also
long-suspected of being an agent for Saudi Arabia's foreign intelligence
service. According to the sources, Basnan was busted for drug possession
in southern California and the Saudi government intervened to get the charges
dropped. Basnan also befriended Alhazmi and Almihdhar prior to their deaths
in the crash of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.
At one point, the Basnans, the al-Bayoumis and the two 9-11 hijackers all
lived at the Parkwood Apartments in San Diego.
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- Both Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa denied they played
any role in financing the 9-11 hijackers, and claimed they were merely
providing charitable assistance to the Saudi community in the United States.
The two co-chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, Robert
Graham (D-Fla.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) accused the FBI of failing
to fully pursue this "9-11 money trail.'' Sources told LPAC that the
FBI refused to allow the committee to interview the FBI investigators who
had probed the Basnan and al-Bayoumi links.
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- LaRouche PAC
- P.O. Box 6157
- Leesburg, VA, 20178
- www.larouchepac.com
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