Bandar “Bush” Named as 9/11 Planner in 28 Pages
Congress releases long-secret '28 pages' indicating Saudi ties to 9/11
Editor’s
note: Prince Bandar, former head of Saudi secret services, former
Ambassador to the United States, has been tied directly to the planning
of 9/11. Below, an excerpt in the widely censored release of the 28
long withheld pages, made a huge error.
In
naming ASPCOL Corporation as handling the “property” of Prince Bandar,
those who failed to redact this section did not note that attorney
William Jordan III, the sole proprietor of ASPCOL Corporation, not only
represents Bandar’s property interests but has broader involvements in
arms sales and more, as outlined in the February 12, 2008 Aspen Daily
News article included as Appendix I.
Seemingly, film maker Michael Moore had this right in Fahrenheit 9/11.
The
long-awaited 28 pages of a 2002 congressional report on the 9/11
attacks have been released. The document indicates that prominent
members of the Saudi Arabian were involved in planning and financing the
terror attacks.
The declassified documents were released by Congress on Friday
and released them the same day, release of the documents confirmed
suspicions that the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks – most of
whom were Saudi nationals – likely received support from high-ranking
Saudi intelligence officers.
“While in the United States, some of the September 11
hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance
from, individuals who may have be connected to the Saudi Government,” the report states. “There
is information, primarily from FBI sources, that at least two of those
individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers.”
The documents go on to explain that the magnitude of Saudi involvement isn’t clear because the US government only began to “aggressively investigate” after the attack already occurred.
“In
their testimony, neither CIA nor FBI witnesses were able to identify
definitely the extent of Saudi support for terrorist activity globally
or within the United States and the extent to which such support, if it
exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature,” the report states.
However, it does list prominent Saudis suspected of being involved with terrorism by US intelligence agencies.
Suspected
Saudi intelligence officer Omar al-Bayoumi is given a detailed summary
in the report. The report starts that FBI files indicate that al-Bayoumi
provided“substantial assistance” to 9/11 hijackers Khalid
al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the five terrorists who crashed
American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
(William
R. Jordan III, attorney for Prince Bandar “Bush” is listed in the 28
pages as intermediary for the 9/11 highjackers through ASpcol
Corporation, his “one man” operation in Aspen Colorado that lists revues
of $110,000 annually (Manta.com))
In February 2000, al-Bayoumi met with hijackers in a public place in San Diego“shortly after his meeting with an individual at the Saudi consulate.”
The
report goes on to state that there is reason to believe that
al-Bayoumi’s meeting with the terrorists was not accidental. He had
“extensive contact” with Saudi government establishments in the US
during the same time as the meeting with the hijackers, and received
financial support from a Saudi company affiliated with the Saudi
Ministry of Defense.
“According
to FBI files … al-Bayoumi received a monthly salary [from the company]
even though he had had only been there on one occasion,” the report says. “The
support increased substantially in April 2000, two months after the
hijackers arrived in San Diego, decreased slightly in December 2000, and
stayed at that same level until August 2001. That company reportedly
had ties to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.”
Al-Bayoumi
is further incriminated in the report by his close association with
Osama Bassnan, who himself is known to have had extensive contact with
al-Midhar and al-Hazmi. He lived across the street from the two
hijackers and told an FBI asset that he met the men through al-Bayoumi,
and claims that al-Bayoumi “knew the men very well.” Bassnan told the same asset that he “did more than Al-Bayoumi did for the hijackers,” the report states.
The
report says that the FBI received indication that Bassnan himself was a
supporter of Osama bin Laden who might have been a Saudi intelligence
officer.
“According
to a CIA memo, Bassnan reportedly received funding and possibly a fake
passport from Saudi Government officials. He and his wife have received
financial support from the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and his
wife,” the report states, adding that Bassnan had also received money from a member of the Saudi royal family.
Also
implicated in the report is a US-based corporation, and, by
association, Bandar bin Sultan, a member of the House of Saud who served
as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US from 1983 to 2005.
The
report linked Abu Zubaida, a senior Al-Qaeda operative captured in
2002, to certain numbers in the United States by going through his
phonebook. One of those numbers is subscribed to by Aspen-based ASPCOL
Corporation, a company that was managed the affairs of Ambassador bin
Sultan, even though the phone number was unlisted.
The
report cautions that the information presented should not be taken as a
complete or perfectly reliable assessment of the information presented,
since it is largely a compilation of FBI and CIA documents.
“It
was not the task of this Joint Inquiry to conduct the kind of extensive
investigation that would be required to determine the true significance
of any such alleged connections to the Saudi government,” it stated.
However,
the report did indicate that information it presented strongly points
to elements of the Saudi government having a hand in the 9/11 attacks.
“[I]t
is possible that these kinds of connections could suggest …
‘incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists
within the Saudi government,’” the report said, quoting a document from July 2002, which had its name redacted.
“On the other hand,” the reported stated, continuing, “it
is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could
reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations.”
Saudi
Arabia, an ally to the US in the Middle East, has firmly denied any
involvement in the attacks and repudiated the accusations against it.
The nation had previously fought against the declassification of the 28
pages.
Just
in April, Riyadh threatened the US with economic fallout if Congress
passed a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held
responsible based on findings from Friday’s report.
Adel
al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, personally told US lawmakers
that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury
securities and other assets in the United States if the 9/11 bill
passes, since they would be worried that the assets could be frozen in
American courts.
This tune changed with Friday’s
release of the documents, with the Riyadh officially welcoming the
report, in hopes that it would remove suspicions about the Saudi
government’s actions.
“Since
2002, the 9/11 Commission and several government agencies, including
the CIA and the FBI, have investigated the contents of the ’28 Pages’
and have confirmed that neither the Saudi government, nor senior Saudi
officials, nor any person acting on behalf of the Saudi government
provided any support or encouragement for these attacks,” Abdullah al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, said in a statement, according to Reuters.
“We
hope the release of these pages will clear up, once and for all, any
lingering questions or suspicions about Saudi Arabia’s actions,
intentions, or long-term friendship with the United States.”
Appendix I
Bandar’s Aspen real estate proceeds frozen by D.C. judge in bribes case
by Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
by Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A
federal judge has temporarily blocked Prince Bandar from moving money
gained from his Aspen real estate sales to Saudi Arabia and other
locations outside of the United States.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer issued a temporary restraining order on Feb. 5
in response to a class-action lawsuit claiming that Prince Bandar
acquired his Aspen real estate holdings with “illegal bribe payments”
from a British defense company,BAE Systems PLC.
Prince
Bandar has denied the payments were illegal or were bribes, but instead
maintains they were legitimate government funds audited by the Saudi
Ministry of Finance.
The
legal team suing Prince Bandar and the officers and directors of BAE
filed an “emergency application” for the restraining order because they
claimed, despite the slowing Aspen realestate market, that Prince Bandar
“has the ability to instantaneously sell the rest of the U.S.-based
property interests he holds and transfer the proceeds out of the
country.”
A hearing to determine whether the order should be extended is scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m. in Washington, D.C.
“The
$167.4 million in U.S.-based real estate Bandar continues to hold was
acquired using the billions of dollars inillegal BAE bribe payments
obtained from BAE,” the emergency application stated.
The
$167.4 million figure presumes Prince Bandar’s main Starwood estate is
worth $135 million, even though it didn’t fetch that price while listed
on the market for over a year.
The
lawsuit against Bandar claims that BAE leaders knew they were making
illegal payments to Prince Bandar as partof an $86 billion arms deal in
1985 that amounted to “intentional, reckless and/or negligent breaches
of fiduciary duty,” which, the lawsuit alleges, wasted BAE’s assets and
hurt shareholders.
The
lawsuit naming Bandar was filed in U.S.District Court in September on
behalf of the city of Harper Woods Employees’ Retirement System, which
was a BAE shareholder. Harper Woods is a suburb of Detroit, Mich.
The
lawsuit was filed against the officers and directors of BAE Systems
PLC, Prince Bandar and PNC Financial Group, the successor to Riggs Bank
of Washington.
Money spent in Aspen
“The
illegal bribe/kickback payments were received and spent by Bandar here
in the U.S., including over $100million to build one of the largest and
most lavish personal residencesin the U.S., located in Aspen, Colorado,
and known as ‘Hala Ranch,'” charged plaintiffs attorney Roger Adelman of
Washington, D.C., in the application for the restraining order.
“While
Bandar amassed his palatial Colorado estate, many questioned exactly
how Bandar could afford the lavish estate, the 50 full-time workers
Bandar employed there, the entourage that accompanied his and his
family’s increasing visits to Aspen, andthe hundreds of thousands of
dollars Bandar was handing out in the Aspen community on an ambassador’s
salary,” the application stated.
But Bandar was always more than an ambassador.
Bandar
is the grandson of the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul, also known
as Ibn Saud. He is married to the daughter of the late King Faisal. And
his father, Prince Sultan, is now next in line to the Saudi throne.
His
Royal Highness Prince Bandar bin Sultanbin Abdulaziz served as Saudi
ambassador to the U.S. from 1983 to 2005, when he was appointed
secretary general of the Saudi National SecurityCouncil.
Prince Bandar bought his main Starwood property in 1989 and the 56,000-square-foot home on the property was finished in 1991.
In 2006, Bandar listed the primary residence for sale for $135 million, but pulled it off the market in November.
A
month later, Bandar sold another home in Starwood he had built for one
of his daughters for $36.5 million and also sold two other Starwood
properties near his main estate for atotal of $49 million.
“Those
sales proceeds have already likely been transferred to Saudi Arabia or
other countries outside of this Court’s grasp,” wrote attorney Adelman
in his application for the restraining order.
“In
addition to Hala Ranch, Bandar purchased (using bribe payments) and
continues to own at least two other private residences in Aspen, 22
units at the Aspen Inn that are used by his staff, and an office suite
that houses his Aspen lawyer,” the application for the restraining order
stated.
The condo units are at the Inn at Aspen at the base of Buttermilk.
Bandar’s Aspen attorney, William Jordan III, has a second-floor office on the Cooper Avenue mall.
The
restraining order specifically names Jordan and “realtor Josh Saslove”
of Aspen-based Joshua and Company, along with Bandar and “his agents,
attorneys and others representing him” in its requirement that any money
from past or upcoming real estate sales remain in “U.S.-based
accounts.”
Bandar, Saslove and Jordan could not bereached for comment on Monday. Nor could attorneys for Bandar and the city of Harper Woods pension fund.
Judges and lawyers
Without
ruling on the larger merits of the case, Judge Collyer found that the
complaint against Bandar “… at a minimum, raises serious questions of
law concerning whether Prince Bandar may be required to return the bribe
payments and profits on those payments to BAE.”
However,
the court denied a request for an “immediate accounting of payments BAE
made to Prince Bandar, including the present form and location of those
funds … .”
The
restraining order doesn’t prevent the sale of any of Bandar’s real
estate, but requires that any resultingmoney not be transferred out of
the country.
The suit was filed by attorneys with the San Diego law firm of Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman and Robbins.
The
firm was founded in 2004 by William S.Lerach, a well-known class-action
attorney who resigned from Coughlin, Stoia in October shortly before
pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and make
false statements.
He
confessed to being part of a scheme while at the law firm of Milberg
Weiss to pay clients who filed class-action lawsuits against companies.
Lerach, 61, was sentenced Monday by afederal judge in Los Angeles to two years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service and $250,000 in penalties.
Bandar claims innocence
Through a London law firm in June, Prince Bandar denied any wrongdoing regarding the BAE payments.
“The
accounts at Riggs Bank were in the nameof the Saudi Arabian Ministry of
Defense and Aviation (MODA),” Bandar’s statement said. “Any payments
into those accounts made by BAE were pursuant to the Al-Yamamah
contracts and as such would not in any way have been secret from the
parties to those contracts.
“Whilst
Prince Bandar was an authorized signatory on the accounts any monies
paid out of those accounts were exclusively for purposes approved by
MODA,” the statement said.
Also in June, BAE issued a statement saying the payments were proper.
“The
Al-Yamamah program is a government-to-government agreement and all such
payments made under those agreements were made with the express
approval of both the Saudi and the U.K. governments,” the statement
said.
Britain’s Serious Fraud Office was investigating the Al-Yamamah deal but closed their review in December 2006.
Last
month, a British intelligence report disclosed that the investigation
into the arms deal was closed because the Saudis might stop sharing
valuable information with British officials about terrorism.
In September 2007, the Saudis agreed to buy 72 fighter jets from BAE for almost $9 billion.
The U.S. Department of Justice is now investigating the Al-Yamamah matter and the payments to Prince Bandar.
Prince
Bandar has hired attorney Brad Reynolds of the Washington, D.C., law
firm of Howrey LLP to represent him in the city of Harper Woods lawsuit
and presumably to help with the Justice Department investigation.
Reynolds
is a former U.S. assistant attorney general with “extensive experience
counseling clients on criminal andcivil matters under investigation by
the U.S. Department of Justice,” according to the firm’s Web site.
Attorneys
for the BAE officers and directors have recently moved for dismissal of
the city of Harper Woods lawsuit, saying that the pension fund does not
have standing and that decisions made by officers of an English company
should be reviewed in Englishcourts.
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