Two years after Saudi Arabia's monarch suffered a serious stroke, the kingdom has all but completed a quiet but decisive transition from ailing King Fahd to Crown Prince Abdullah, a shift altering issues ranging from Persian Gulf policies to U.S. relations, according to Western envoys in the kingdom and American analysts.

"Abdullah, who was for decades a man of the future, has recently very much become the man of the hour," said a former U.S. official with continuing ties to the region.

"It's increasingly unacceptable to do important business without going to him first," the former official said. "Even important Aramco [the Saudi oil company] correspondence is now signed by the crown prince for the king."

Significant changes in policy are already visible, most notably in economic policy. There is now new emphasis on austerity previously unknown in the oil-rich nation--with a rippling impact on allies.

To help balance the budget, for example, Abdullah is prepared to forgo some of the expensive U.S. military equipment and technology that poured into the kingdom for a quarter of a century--and channeled billions of petrodollars back into American coffers, according to the diplomats and analysts, who include former government officials.

The transition is also now beginning to shift Saudi Arabia's approach to central diplomatic and security issues.

As the kingdom reaches out diplomatically to engage regional rivals once viewed as threats, including Iran, Saudi Arabia could ultimately become less dependent on the U.S. military, the sources say.

"These have always been two very different men," a Western envoy in Riyadh said about the king and his half brother. "Enough time has now passed to be able to see the differences."

The crown prince was initially hesitant to make decisions for fear of crowding Fahd, who temporarily appointed Abdullah to act on his behalf after a stroke in 1995.

The king is in his mid-70s. Abdullah is just two years younger, but he is in far better health.

Fahd officially resumed power several months after his stroke but unofficially continued to rely on Abdullah because of continuing health complications.

"He has been suffering from memory loss and limited powers of concentration for years," said Simon Henderson, author of a report for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The king still receives visiting dignitaries; last month he saw Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and South African President Nelson Mandela. But diplomats say privately that Fahd's mental capabilities now vary greatly from day to day.

"He's in and out," said a Western official who saw him recently. "Sometimes he doesn't recognize people he's long known, other times he drives his own car."

The transition will increasingly be felt in Washington, the sources say, although not necessarily in negative ways.

Fahd, who served in several Cabinet posts before becoming the fifth Saudi king and who masterminded the modernization of the country, is largely responsible for upgrading relations and then linking Saudi security to the United States.

Although major decisions usually involve family consensus, Fahd is widely said to have unilaterally decided in 1990, during talks with then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, to allow half a million American troops into the kingdom after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Fahd also spent $1 trillion to build a national infrastructure and a modern army almost from scratch. Central to those efforts were U.S. corporations, including airplane manufacturers, telecommunications firms, architects, health care companies and construction firms.

Saudi purchases became so critical to the U.S. arms industry that certain equipment, including one of the most modern tanks, would not have been cost-efficient without them.

In contrast to Fahd, Abdullah's main responsibility for the past 30 years has been commanding the National Guard, a force independent of the Defense Ministry that is partly charged with the kingdom's security and protecting its economic installations.

Through U.S. trainers of the National Guard, he developed close ties to Washington. Several U.S. major generals have served as advisors to him, even during tense relations in the 1960s and 1970s.

Yet despite these ties, the crown prince is more of an Arab nationalist than is the king, and he is also a more devout Sunni Muslim and therefore less tolerant of non-Islamic practices. Many of his closest advisors are Syrian and Lebanese, and his wife is Syrian.

Abdullah's mother came from the Bedouin Shammar tribe near the border with Jordan, once a rival to the kingdom's founding Al Saud family. His father, Saudi founder King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, had more than 40 sons with different wives but had only one with Abdullah's mother.

Abdullah is strongly in favor of security based on regional peace, even with long-standing rivals. Just recently he became the highest-ranking Saudi official to travel to Iran since Tehran's 1979 revolution.

In a speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in Tehran this month, Abdullah called for coexistence with the predominantly Shiite state, which has a vastly different political system.

"It is not in the nature of things for all Muslims to arrive at a single interpretation of how the Islamic state should look, or a common approach to our Islamic jurisprudence or a single concept of international politics," he said.

He then proposed U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.

"I do not think it would be difficult for the brotherly Iranian people and for a big power like the United States to reach a solution to any disagreement between them," he said.

When queried, he offered Saudi assistance in bringing about talks between the two enemies.

The crown prince also differs somewhat on the Mideast peace process. "Abdullah is bolder than Fahd in seeing the benefits of an Arab-Israeli accommodation but less patient" with the time it is taking to resolve the issue, a former senior envoy to Saudi Arabia said. "The king has been willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the process, whereas the crown prince is not."

Economically, Abdullah wants to balance the budget--forgoing the kind of big-ticket American items his older brother favored.

While Fahd believes that Aramco and God will always provide for the kingdom, diplomats and analysts say, Abdullah is a pragmatist who is aware that expenses are growing along with the population, yet income is dependent on a finite amount of oil.

Among the U.S. products he is unlikely to pursue are 100 F-16 fighters, made by Lockheed Martin. A deal is now unlikely since the kingdom is still having trouble paying for Boeing aircraft it has already ordered, the sources said.

Corruption has grown worse since Fahd's stroke, sources said, as profiteers recognize that the crown prince intends to crack down.

"Abdullah has a vision of a Saudi Arabia where there are fewer rake-offs in the process of doing public business and less padding for the purpose of passing patronage money around to the princes and their proteges," the former envoy said.

The transition is changing Abdullah too. Usually less visible than his brothers or hundreds of nephews, Abdullah is now visibly at the helm, decisive and at ease with power.

"It's really quite striking," a Western official said. "With growing authority has come self-confidence."

Saudis Said to Abuse Foreigners, AP, Tarek al-Issawi, Octber 6, 1997

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Saudi Arabia executed a Syrian man on false charges of witchcraft only to meet the demands of his employer, a nephew of the king, according to a human rights report released Tuesday. 

The New York-based Human Rights Watch-Middle East cited the execution of Abdul-Karim al-Naqshabandi as one of numerous cases of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia who are arrested, tortured and punished based on false charges. 

There was no immediate reaction from Saudi authorities, who seldom respond to reporters' queries. Human Rights Watch said it wrote several letters to Saudi Arabia's foreign, interior and justice ministers to seek a response, but all went unanswered.  

The report also criticized the kingdom's lack of a written or published penal code, which it said permits authorities ``excessively wide discretion.'' 

Al-Naqshabandi, 40, was executed in December for allegedly practicing witchcraft. He had worked for more than 14 years for Saudi Prince Salman bin Saud bin Abdul Aziz, a nephew of King Fahd. 

The 29-page report, devoted entirely to al-Naqshabandi's case, said he was detained for more than three years before he was beheaded in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.  

It said al-Naqshabandi, an administrative director at Prince Salman's storage company, wrote letters to the trial judge alleging the prince brought false charges against him when he refused to falsely testify against another employer. But his letters were ignored, the report said. 

He also described physical abuse by the prince and police officers while he was detained to extract a false confession, said the report 

He said he was ``tied like an animal ... on the edge of a swimming pool and so what could I do but give in and sign the confession in order to save myself.'' 

Al-Naqshabandi said he was taken to a police station, where an officer put a shoe in his mouth and held him in solitary confinement. 

The report said al-Naqshabandi was ``prosecuted and then executed to satisfy the wishes of his wealthy, well-connected employer.'' Until three days before his execution, al-Naqshabandi did not even know he had been convicted let alone sentenced to death.  

Saudi Arabia's Islamic courts impose the death penalty on murderers, rapists and drug traffickers. Beheadings are carried out in public with a razor-sharp sword. At least 100 people have been executed in the first nine months of 1997 alone and more than 540 since 1990. 

It is not known how many of them were executed for practicing witchcraft. 

Human rights groups have in the past criticized the executions on grounds that the accused often are not represented by lawyers during their trials and have difficulty appealing verdicts 

Saudi Sought in Bombings Moves to Afghan Militia Capital, Reuters, April 11, 1997

A Saudi exile sought by the United States for bombings against U.S. forces in his homeland has moved to the headquarters of the militia of Islamic fundamentalists who control most of Afghanistan, an Afghan official said today.

Osama bin Laden, who was stripped of his Saudi nationality in 1994, is wanted by U.S. and Saudi authorities in connection with car-bomb attacks in Riyadh in 1995 and at the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran in 1996 that killed 24 U.S. servicemen and two Indian nationals.

Acting Afghan Information Minister Amir Khan Mutaqi said the move to Kandahar by bin Laden, who had settled in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, was a personal decision.

"Kandahar is the decision-making center of the Taliban movement, and if bin Laden wants to discuss anything with the Taliban, he can go and see the leader directly," said Mutaqi.

Mutaqi said earlier that bin Laden will not be allowed to carry out "terrorist" activities from Afghan soil.

"We are hospitable people," he said. "But we will not allow Afghanistan to be used to launch terrorist attacks. The Taliban will never allow bin Laden to use Afghan territory for training camps or subversive acts against any other country."

The Taliban, which captured Kabul last September but continues to operate out of Kandahar, controls about 75 percent of Afghanistan. The group has yet to be recognized as the legitimate government by any nation or international body.

No Problem with Albright, AP, February 22, 1997

Saudi Arabia's ambassador said his country looks forward to dealing with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, despite the curtailed role women play in Saudi society. 

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador and dean of the Washington diplomatic corps, told reporters he had anticipated questions about how well the Saudi government could work with Albright and had carefully rehearsed his answer. 

``I am offended with the sexist question,'' Prince Bandar said, grinning. ``If half the men in the State Department had the ... What was that word she used? -- cojones -- that Albright has, then America will be safe forever.'' 

He was referring to one of the more colorful moments in Albright's previous post as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations when Cuban fighter pilots shot down a pair of civilian aircraft. 

A U.S. intercept of the fighter pilot chatter caught one of the Cubans exulting after shooting down one of the two Cessnas that he had taken out the testicles of the intruder, using the Spanish word ``cojones.'' An indignant Albright said: ``Frankly, this is not `cojones.' This is cowardice.'' 

The comment ruffled feathers in the staid world of diplomacy but delighted President Clinton and the Cuban-American community in Florida. 

Bandar noted that Saudi Arabia worked easily with Margaret Thatcher throughout her leadership of Britain.

Why Go It Alone?, The Washington Post, Daniel Pipes, December 3, 1997

Another crisis with Iraq appears over, with Saddam again stronger than he had been. The reason for his success is not hard to find: "Arabs Angry with U.S. for Iraq Crisis," reads the typical newspaper headline. And indeed they are. From all over the Middle East, politicians, religious leaders and ordinary people have harsh words for American actions. In their view, we are "starving and besieging the Iraqi people . . . without the slightest regard for their human rights."

 In addition, Arab commentators seem not to find Saddam Hussein a threat to themselves. One highly placed Jordanian, for example, blandly asserts that "there is no capability of Iraq to threaten its neighbors for the next 20 years."

 With such attitudes, it comes as no surprise that Middle Eastern governments tried to prevent the U.S. government from using force against Saddam. Neither the Saudis nor Turks have agreed to the use of their territory for strikes against Iraqi targets. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright undertook an embarrassing trip to the region and found no Arab support for using force against Iraq.

 Now, all this is very strange. In the natural order of things, it should be the Saudis, Turks and others who beseech the Americans to help fend off Saddam -- the tyrant who without provocation attacked Iran in 1980, Kuwait in 1990 and Saudi Arabia and Israel in 1991. Middle Easterners, after all, are a lot closer to Saddam Hussein's missiles than are we; and they are also a lot weaker than the United States.

 Why then are we in this topsy-turvy situation whereby the distant and strong power begs nearby and weak states to contain their mutual enemy? An answer may lie in the fact that the U.S. government has repeatedly found itself in this position. During the Vietnam War, we had to plead with the South Vietnamese to stand strong against the Viet Cong and North Vietnam. During the last decade of the Cold War, Washington had to persuade NATO allies to accept modern American missiles on their territories.

 In each of these cases, as in the present one, American officialdom made the same mistake: So convinced of the righteousness and importance of its cause, it shouldered the main responsibility for it, shoving aside the local parties.

 This had the perverse effect of freeing up the locals; aware that what they do has almost no importance, they reverted to political immaturity. No longer having to worry about their own skins, they instead indulge in corruption (Vietnam), political opportunism (NATO) and conspiracy theories (the Middle East). The American adult rendered others childlike.

 The solution, then, lies in a very different American approach, one that gives significance to the allies' actions. With this in mind, I propose that President Clinton say something like this:

 "It's up to you, my Middle Eastern friends. If you think you can coexist with a Saddam who possesses large armies and weapons of mass destruction, we're happy to withdraw our aircraft carriers, our soldiers in the region and the rest of our infrastructure. If you think you can survive a Saddam who gains the proceeds of 3 million barrels of oil a day, we will lift the sanctions. In short, if you really want to return to the way things were before the Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990, just tell us and it's yours.

 "But if, to the contrary, you worry that such steps will endanger your security, we are happy to stay. However, we need you explicitly to ask us to do so. You have to pay a portion of our costs and provide soldiers and materiel to carry out the mission. Finally, so that we know that the request is deeply felt, and not just the whim of the leaders, you also must hold a referendum on the topic so that the populations of your countries can endorse our efforts."

This sensational statement would turn the politics of the Middle East right-side up and transform the United States from pariah of the region to savior.

Police arrest 50 protesters against Farnborough arms show, Itar-Tass, September 1, 1997

LONDON, September 1 (Itar-Tass) - The police have arrested 50 protesters against the government policy in the sphere of armaments.

The protesters on Monday blocked the exits and entrances to the annual show of the military hardware in Farnborough (to the south-west of London). Around 1,000 people took part in the demonstration.

The protesters were indignant at the authorities' decision to invite to the show representatives of Turkey, Indonesia, China and Saudi Arabia, the countries which enjoy poor reputation in the sphere of the observance of human rights.

According to the organizers of the public meeting, the Labour government thus violated its promises it had given during the election campaign. It proved incapable to observe the "ethical norms" in its foreign policy.

A spokesman for the Hampshire law-enforcement bodies said that around 100 policemen blocked the protesters who attempted to surmount the shields on the field which is the venue of the show. It was stressed, however, that it was a peace demonstration.

Secretary for Defence George Robertson was expected to see the show, but later the Defence Ministry said that the visit was canceled due to the tragic death of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales.

Two Women Athletes Fail Drug Tests at Arab Games, Xinhua, July 23, 1997

BEIRUT (July 23) XINHUA - Two female athletes have failed drug tests in the Arab Games, officials said on Wednesday.

Maha Mohammed El-Hassan, Syrian triple jumper who failed to win any medal, tested positive for banned stimulant nandrolon, said Dr Ridah Kazem, head of the Games' doping committee, who declined to specify what penalties she would incur.

Women cager Karima Shaniur of Tunisia tested positive for hiptamynol, a drug to combat low blood pressure and has been kicked out of the tournament, Kazem added.

Tunisia, which beat Lebanon 55-52 on Monday in the latest round, faced the risk of being disqualified from the tournament.

Currently, Tunisia was ranked fifth in the medals table at the Games with seven golds, while Syria has six.

Early on Sunday, Kazem said that Saudi Arabia's Khaled al-Khalidi, winner of the gold medal in the discus and silver medal in the shot, also failed a drug test.

However, Kazem denied speculation of another six cases of drugs at the games.   

Aziz says U.S. profits from Saudi oil, CNN-Larry King Live, Novemner 23, 1997

The Security Council took the action in retaliation for Iraq's decision to expel American members of its weapons inspection teams in Iraq. Iraq announced it would expel the inspectors October 29, but did not enforce it until Thursday. 
 

Aziz also said that the United States does not want arms inspectors to certify that Iraq has eliminated all its weapons of mass destruction because it is getting a share of Saudi Arabia's oil profits.

 

He claimed Saudi Arabian oil output has increased by 3 million barrels a day since the Gulf War. His own country, meanwhile, is prevented by U.N. sanctions from selling its oil except in exchange for food and medical supplies.

 

Richardson, the ambassador to the United Nations, dismissed Aziz's rhetoric as "pure propaganda" and said the charge that the United States was profiting from Saudi oil sales is "totally hogwash." 

He said that while Aziz appears to be a reasonable man, he is one of Iraq's hard-liners devoted to policies that have made the country "a very bad neighbor." He stressed repeatedly that Iraq's quarrel is with the United Nations, not the United States.

Treatment of Banca di Roma, Italy, Business Wire, November 21, 1997

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 1997--The Italian privatisation agency, IRI, has announced that following completion of the Combined Offering, Separate Transactions and the full exchange of International Exchangeable Notes issued by Mediobanca, a total of 2,393,719,938 shares in Banca di Roma will be offered for sale to institutional and retail investors at a price ranging between 1,200 and 1,700 lire.

This amounts to approximately 44.74% of the total issued capital of 5,350,013,050 shares. In addition, there is an over-allotment option of 300 million shares which, if exercised, could bring the newly issued share capital to approximately 50.35% of the total.

The FT/S&P Actuaries World Indices announces that based on the available free float of 44.74% and, in accordance with Ground Rule 4.1 (iv), Banca Di Roma will not qualify as an immediate entry to the World Index because using the mid-point offer price of 1,450 lire, the investible market capitalisation does not equate to 1% of the Italian index.

If, however, the over-allotment option is exercised and/or upon expiration of lock-up clauses relating to shares held by certain core investors, the Committee confirms that Banca di Roma will be added to the World Index at its full share weighing as over 50% of the company's issued share capital will be available to investors.

Confirmation of the addition of this company to the index will be made under a separate announcement.

Saudi's Plea Bargain Should Be Made Public, Judge Says, The Washington Post - Toni Loci, October 11, 1997

A federal judge said yesterday that a plea agreement signed by a man believed to have inside knowledge of the June 1996 bombing of a U.S. military complex in Saudi Arabia should be made public even though the man changed his mind and disavows its contents.

 

With relatives of victims looking on, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said he will issue a written order on Oct. 21 granting a request by The Washington Post and other media outlets to unseal the plea agreement that Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh signed early this summer.

But Sullivan said he will not release the plea agreement until seven days after his order is made public so that Sayegh's attorney, Francis Carter, will have a chance to appeal.

Sullivan also said he will grant a request by prosecutors to drop a conspiracy charge against Sayegh without prejudice, in case the government develops more evidence and wants to charge him again.

Prosecutors decided to drop the case after Sayegh backed out of an agreement to cooperate with investigators. Without Sayegh's admissions about his terrorist activities and after Saudi authorities failed to provide any evidence against Sayegh, prosecutors realized they had no case.

In arguing to keep the plea agreement secret, Carter tried to portray Sayegh as a foreigner unfamiliar with U.S. laws and language.

Carter said that Sayegh told authorities from the beginning that he didn't know anything about the Dhahran bombing and that Sayegh signed the plea agreement under duress because he knew that he would be executed in Saudi Arabia for his anti-Saudi government views if he were deported. Carter also said that Sayegh made the deal while receiving poor advice from another attorney who specialized in immigration matters but knew nothing about criminal law.

"My client did not comprehend what he was signing," Carter said.

But prosecutor Eric A. Dubelier said Sayegh picked his own lawyer and knew exactly what was going on. "Mr. Sayegh asked better questions . . . than [experienced] criminal lawyers," Dubelier said, adding that the defendant "impressed" him with his attention to legal details.

The prosecutor said Sayegh received a draft of the plea agreement in Arabic, took notes and made lists of changes he wanted in it. "Mr. Sayegh understood what it said, the circumstances of it and the ramifications of it," Dubelier said.

About a dozen relatives of the 19 Air Force members who were killed during the bombing launched a letter-writing campaign and sent 1,500 to 2,000 letters to Sullivan demanding that Sayegh be deported. The judge asked that the letters be given to immigration officials who will decide whether Sayegh must leave the United States.

The relatives say they want Sayegh's plea agreement to be made public because they are anxious for information about the government's investigation of the June 25, 1996, bombing, which also injured 500 others.

Joe Assante, whose cousin, Capt. Christopher Adams, was killed, said the families are frustrated because the government has kept them "out of the loop" on the investigation.
 

"We should know what's in those documents," said Assante's wife, Eileen. "These 19 men were protecting our lives. We owe it to them to find out what was going on here."

 

Behind Saudi-American Bickering, The Washington Post, February 2, 1997

THE PUBLIC bickering between American and Saudi officials over the investigation of the deaths of 19 American airmen could turn out to be healthy. American officials usually go on tiptoe in matters involving the royal family, in deference to the style it has chosen for its survival. But here Saudi officials had stymied direct American access to witnesses of the Dhahran bombing. This put Washington in the untenable position of being unable to discharge its obligation of inquiry to men who died while serving their country. Saudi acknowledgment of this prime requirement in a democratic society would help clear the air.

Unfortunately, the Saudis, in this case anyway, seem still to be marching to a different drummer. The American purpose is to find out the facts. The Saudi purpose appears to be to promote a particular theory of the case -- that Iran sponsored a few Saudi Shiite terrorists. Officials are reluctant to grant that the deed may have been done by home-grown religious conservatives opposed to the Saudi-American connection. Secrecy, discretion, maneuver, ambiguity: These are the ways of the wary Saudi leadership.

The matter might be left unresolved if events were not carrying Saudi Arabia and the United States into ever closer mutual engagement. The United States, slow to conserve energy, needs more and more Saudi oil. The Saudis need American patronage and protection. Even when they undertake a more independent policy -- for their own defense, for instance -- they do so in increasing reliance on Washington -- on its technology, spare parts, bases, arms and political will. That is how those 19 Americans came to be in Dhahran. But American technology, culture and military presence offend the Saudi religious right.

Saudi Arabia is now reportedly eyeing the purchase of 102 advanced F-16 American warplanes. Assume that this $5 billion to $15 billion package survives its premature disclosure. It will intensify a gathering internal debate over foreign orientation, budgetary priorities and even military priorities. Already this debate has given international topicality to whether the royal family will retain adequate legitimacy and whether Saudi Arabia itself may be treading the path of the shah's Iran.

The United States has a long friendship of convenience with Saudi Arabia. Its continuance remains a major interest of both countries. But circumstances require more clarity and candor from Saudi Arabia as well as the the United States in working out their complex tie in newly trying times.

Freeh Says Saudis Block Bomb, The Washington Post - Robert Suro, September 11, 1997

Federal prosecutors decided to drop charges against a Saudi man believed to have inside knowledge of the Khobar Towers bombing in part because Saudi authorities failed to provide evidence against him that could be used in a U.S. court, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said yesterday.

While cooperation with the Saudis has improved in recent months, Freeh and other FBI officials said at a news briefing that U.S. investigators continue to be denied direct access to evidence, suspects and potential witnesses developed by the Saudi authorities.

Difficulties over the Saudi's unwillingness to share evidence date back to the first days of the investigation into the June 1996 bombing of a military housing complex near the massive Dhahran air base. Freeh's remarks indicated that a lack of cooperation extended to what had been the most promising development in the probe and is now considered an important lost opportunity.

Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh, an acknowledged Saudi dissident, agreed in June to provide information on the Khobar bombing as part of a plea agreement reached with U.S. officials while he was in custody in Canada. His arrest in Canada and the other proceedings against him were carried out largely on the basis of information provided by the Saudi government, Freeh said yesterday.

Saudi officials had alleged that Sayegh was a direct participant in the Khobar bombing, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel and injured more than 500 others, U.S. officials said. In particular the Saudis said that Sayegh could provide firsthand knowledge of involvement by Iranian intelligence officials in the bombing plot, the U.S. officials said.

Sayegh subsequently broke the deal under which he would have pleaded guilty to a single charge related to a 1995 terrorist plot that was never carried out, leading the Justice Department to announce Monday that it would drop the charge because it lacked the evidence to bring him to trial.

Freeh said yesterday that the FBI had received "a lot of information" and "some evidence" from the Saudis regarding Sayegh; however, "all of the information has not been in an evidentiary form that would be admissible under our rules of criminal procedure."

FBI and Justice Department officials said that much of what the Saudis have provided is in the form of reports and as such constitutes secondhand information or hearsay, which is of limited use in building a criminal case.

FBI investigators have been trying since late last year to gain direct access to interviews with individuals identified by Saudi officials as suspects in the case and Freeh himself traveled to Saudi Arabia in January to seek that cooperation. While the Saudi authorities had held out the possibility of providing videotapes of the interrogations, Freeh said yesterday that FBI agents had not seen the tapes.

"More than anything, Sayegh is a lost opportunity right now and we have to keep exploring any means to regain that opportunity," said a senior FBI official involved in the case.

At a hearing yesterday, U.S. District Judge Emmit G. Sullivan said that on Oct. 10 he would rule on both the prosecution motion to dismiss the charge against Sayegh and a request from media organizations to gain access to the plea agreement between Sayegh and the government, which has been under seal.

The Justice Department has announced that it will begin proceedings to remove Sayegh from the country and that it may honor an extradition request from Saudi Arabia. Sayegh's attorney, Francis Carter, said Sayegh intends to seek political asylum here on the grounds that as a Shiite Muslim he faces persecution in Saudi Arabia and that he might face torture there were he returned.

THE PRICE OF A LIFE: WILL 'BLOOD MONEY' SAVE A NURSE IN SAUDI ARABIA FROM A PUBLIC EXECUTION?, Time, Inc., October 20, 1997

Yvonne Gilford had one sweet passion in life. After finishing her 10-hour shifts at the Johannesburg hospital where she had worked since 1991, the Australian-born nurse loved baking cakes, which she decorated with fanciful sugary figures of cats, elves and ballerinas. "If she promised [you] a cake for the next day, she'd be in the kitchen at 2 a.m. finishing it," says a longtime friend, nurse Sue Taylor. It came as no surprise, then, when Gilford told friends early last year that she had accepted a tax-free $21,000-a-year job in Saudi Arabia. She hoped to save enough money to open her own cake-decorating business in Australia in just two years. "We all encouraged her to go," says another friend.

 

But Yvonne Gilford's dream ended in tragedy last Dec. 12. According to press reports, Gilford, 55, was stabbed 13 times, bludgeoned and finally smothered with a pillow during an early-morning struggle in her bedroom at the King Fahd Military Medical Complex in Dhahran. Within a week, Saudi authorities, who had monitored a series of cash withdrawals made with the dead woman's bank card, arrested two British nurses who also worked at the hospital--Deborah Parry, 41, and Lucille McLauchlan, 31. Both women signed detailed murder confessions and were tried earlier this year under the country's secretive Islamic legal system with, their lawyers point out, no witnesses, no cross-examination and no forensic evidence
presented. McLauchlan was sentenced to eight years in prison and 500 lashes for being an accessory, while Parry could face a far harsher punishment--public execution by beheading.

The possibility of that draconian sentence--Parry would be the first western woman ever executed by the Saudis--has sparked a diplomatic crisis. Both nurses vehemently deny they are guilty and have retracted their confessions, which they claim were coerced by authorities who physically abused them, deprived them of sleep and threatened them with rape. Last month, British foreign secretary Robin Cook expressed outrage at the brutality of the punishments.

Meanwhile lawyers for the two nurses have been negotiating with the victim's brother, deliveryman Frank Gilford, 60, of Jamestown, South Australia, who, according to Sharia, the
Islamic legal code, has the right, as the victim's closest male relative, to accept a cash payment--known as "blood money"--in place of the punishment meted out by the courts. For months, Gilford refused to make a deal. "Whatever [Saudi] law dictates, that is the appropriate sentence for the crime," he told

Australia's Who magazine last summer. But last week the nurses' lawyers confirmed that $1.2 million, raised with help from British companies with interests in Saudi Arabia, had been put
in trust--$700,000 for the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide and $500,000 for Gilford--after Gilford signed a preliminary agreement to ask formally for clemency. In life, Yvonne Gilford was nobody's victim. Strong and self-reliant, she was a sheep farmer's daughter brought up on a ranch so remote that she and Frank, her only sibling, at first had to be educated by correspondence, communicating with School of the Air teachers via two-way radio. After winning a scholarship to a high school in Adelaide and completing a four-year nursing course there, Yvonne, then 28, worked in Auckland, New Zealand. But wanting to see more of the world, she
and Sue Taylor sailed for London in 1973. "We would work hard for three or four months, pay the rent in advance," says Taylor, 51, now living in New Zealand, "then take off for five or six
weeks to travel."

Three years later, Gilford and Taylor moved on to Johannesburg, where Gilford eventually became head nurse on the surgical ward of Lady Dudley Hospital. "Her ward was run like clockwork," says nurse Hilda Schwartz, a colleague. According to Taylor, Gilford
was generous with her time and money, volunteering to give therapy to a girl with cerebral palsy on Saturday mornings and loaning small sums to friends. But still single and nearing
retirement, Gilford became increasingly concerned about earning a nest egg and opted for the job in Dhahran in April 1996.

At first she found her new home rather lonely. In letters to friends in South Africa, she complained that the hospital was slow to pay its employees, causing constant turnover. In August she wrote that she had few English-speaking colleagues and that she was looking forward to the arrival of two nurses from Britain.

The two arrived soon after, each with her own reason for moving to Saudi Arabia. Between 1978 and 1987, Deborah Parry, who once nursed members of the British royal family at London's King Edward VII Hospital, had lost her mother, her father, a brother and brother-in-law to sudden illness and accidents, and in 1989 nearly died herself in a car crash. She first sought
psychological care, then, hoping to start over, left for her first year-long nursing stint in Saudi Arabia in 1993. She returned for a second tour in September 1996. Lucille McLauchlan, daughter of a Scottish shipyard worker, had recently been fired from Dundee's King's Cross Hospital after allegedly using a dying patient's cash card to withdraw $2,000--a charge
she denies.

Together in their isolation, the three expatriate nurses soon became friends. On the night of Dec. 11, they reportedly gathered in Gilford's room at the hospital housing complex for
an early Christmas party. The following day, when guards entered the locked room after Gilford failed to report to work, they found her body. According to the London-based Arabic newspaper
Al-Hayat, Parry allegedly struck Gilford on the head with a teapot during an argument. When Gilford tried to defend herself with a kitchen knife, Parry allegedly overpowered her, stabbing
her repeatedly with the knife. Saudi police arrested the two nurses after they allegedly made four withdrawals of $1,000 each from Gilford's account with National Arab Bank.

In their prison cells in Al-Khobar, Parry and McLauchlan, who deny both making the withdrawals and any involvement in their friend's murder, suggest the killer is still on the loose. They
now await the final verdict of the man with the power to set them free. "Now," says one of Parry's attorneys, Robert Thoms, rather anxiously, "the ball is with Mr. Gilford."

U.S. Sends More FBI's To Saudi Arabia for Bombing probe, Xinhua, February 13, 1997

WASHINGTON (Feb. 13) XINHUA - The United States is sending more FBI teams to Saudi Arabia to assist in the probe into the bombing of a U.S. military housing complex last June, an FBI official said today.

Robert Bryant, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said that the probe into the truck bomb attack, which killed 19 Americans, had been at a "low ebb" during the past month because of the Muslim fast of Ramadan.

"But there are additional teams going there literally as we speak," Bryant said.

Testifying on the Khobar bombing before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's Crime Subcommittee, Bryant characterized Saudi cooperation with U.S. investigators as uneven.

"The cooperation that we've gotten from the Saudis has been in some areas exceptional and in some areas where we've made requests for evidentiary-type information, that information has not been forthcoming to date," he noted.

But he said there were "ongoing serious and sensitive conversations regarding information that we need and seek, and this type of conversations are going forward right at this time."

Bryant's remarks come after U.S. officials have publicly complained about Saudi cooperation in the bombing investigations.

Both FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno said last month the Saudi authorities had failed to meet U.S. demands for specific data gained from the investigation.

The Saudis have reportedly arrested a number of Saudi Shiites for the bombing attack, and claim to have evidence linking them to Iran.

But Bryant said that it was still "an open question" whether there had been a state sponsor backing the bombers at Khobar.

He also acknowledged that U.S. investigators had not been allowed to interview witnesses to the Khobar attack "who were not under U.S. control."

Bryant indicated that "the thing that we have to be mindful of is that when deal in another society with other laws besides ours, that we have to be a little bit patient".

`Nervous' Saudi Bombing Suspect Held Without Bond, The Washington Post - Toni Loci, June 19, 1997

A Saudi man linked to last summer's deadly bombing of a U.S. military complex in Saudi Arabia was held without bond here yesterday on an unrelated charge of conspiring to kill Americans living and working in his homeland.

Hani El-Sayegh, who is also known as Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh, 28, appeared in U.S. District Court, where court records indicate he has agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities investigating the attack on Khobar Towers in Dhahran that killed 19 Air Force members and injured 500 others.

Officials hope that Sayegh will give them details about the participants in the attack, especially whether the government of Iran was involved. In exchange, Sayegh will plead guilty to the charge of conspiracy to commit murder and international terrorism.

Sayegh's attorney, Michael J. Wildes, said his client was "very nervous" at yesterday's hearing and "fears for his life if he is returned to Saudi Arabia." Twice, Sayegh blurted out unintelligible comments before being calmed by a court interpreter. "It's my personal belief that this brokered deal is in the best interest of my client and . . . should be respected," Wildes said, declining to comment further.

The guilty plea could come as early as today, after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan decides whether to grant a prosecutor's request to seal certain court documents and deny public access to portions of an upcoming proceeding involving Sayegh. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric A. Dubelier wants Sullivan to seal the plea agreement Sayegh has signed and portions of the extensive oral questioning a judge must conduct of a defendant when a guilty plea is entered.

The Washington Post, joined by CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS, opposed the prosecutor's request in a court filing, saying the public deserves access to information about "one of the most heinous acts of terrorism involving American citizens and soldiers."

Sayegh allegedly played a key role in planning the Khobar Towers attack, driving a vehicle and signaling the operator of the truck containing the massive bomb when to pull up in front of the military housing complex.

According to the unrelated charge, Sayegh received a stipend from an unnamed terrorist organization intent on killing Americans in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Prince Sued by Broker. AP, January 16, 1997

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Saudi prince is being sued for allegedly refusing to pay a real-estate broker a nearly $9.75 million commission when the prince bought the Plaza Hotel.

Lawrence Russo is seeking $38.8 million from Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal, alleging the Saudi royal refused to pay him the commission when the Prince bought the hotel from Citibank in 1994.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Manhattan state Supreme Court.

Alphonso Christian, the prince's lawyer in Washington, D.C., was not immediately reachable for comment.

Donald Trump and Citibank bought the hotel for $390 million in 1987, but the deal soured in the early 1990s when the city's real-estate market went into a slump. Trump eventually gave up control of the hotel to Citibank, which sold it to the prince for a reported $325 million.

Citibank chose Russo, a former Trump Organization vice president, to broker the sale. Terms called for the purchaser to pay Russo's fee, but after Prince Al-Waleed completed the deal, he allegedly refused to pay.

Russo attorney Barry Slotnick said the prince, to avoid paying Russo, created his own real-estate company and falsely listed it as broker for his 80 percent interest in the hotel at 768 Fifth Ave.

In addition, Slotnick said, the prince's alleged real-estate firm, Hotel Capital Advisors Inc., was unlicensed at the time of the sale. Therefore, any deals it entered into would have been illegal, he said.

Slotnick said the prince is out of town and his attorney declined to be served his client's court papers Thursday.

``I think he's in Denver,'' Slotnick said of the prince. ``I tried to avoid embarrassing him, but when he comes back I'll get him.''

Russo's court papers ask quadruple damages for the $9.75 million fee as well as punitive damages for ``willful and malicious'' acts.

Defendants named in the lawsuit include Prince Al-Waleed, Hotel Capital Advisors and its president, Charles Henry.

A woman at the offices of Hotel Capital Advisors said Thursday that Henry was not immediately available for comment.

Canada Detains 2 Saudis Over Dhahran Bombing, The Washington Post - Howard Schneider, March 23, 1997

TORONTO, March 22 -- Canadian immigration officials have detained two Saudi Arabians in connection with the bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, last summer that killed 19 American airmen and injured 500 others, and one has emerged as a focus of FBI attention, U.S. and Canadian officials said today.

Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh was detained in Ottawa on Tuesday as "a security risk to Canada," said Benoit Chiquette, spokesman for Canada's immigration minister.

Chiquette said he could not elaborate on the reasons for the detention, but that there was enough concern about Sayegh for both Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard and Solicitor General Herb Gray to sign documents ordering his arrest.

In Washington, the FBI issued a statement saying it hoped to question Sayegh, 28, about the June 25 bombing of the Khobar Towers, home to American military personnel and others stationed in Saudi Arabia.

The FBI statement indicated that Sayegh's arrest was the result of cooperation among U.S., Saudi and Canadian investigators in identifying and locating him.

An official with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the arrest certificate was based on the agency's belief that Sayegh had committed a criminal act abroad, had been involved in an act of terrorism and was a member of a terrorist organization.

Under Canadian law, the arrest certificate will be reviewed by a federal judge; if it is found to have been warranted, a deportation hearing would begin.

When and whether the FBI can interview Sayegh while his immigration case is pending is an issue Canadian and U.S. authorities still must work out, the official said.

The second Saudi, Fahad Shehri, also is in the custody of Canadian immigration officials. Immigration authorities said he arrived in Canada in December, claiming refugee status. As he was being interviewed by Canadian authorities, he said he needed protection in Canada because he was being sought in Saudi Arabia in connection with the bombing and feared for his life.

The FBI has made no public comment about its possible interest in Shehri as a suspect in the case. Both men are being held in the Ottawa Detention Center. It was not known if the men are Shiites. Saudi officials have said they believe the attack was carried out by Saudi Shiite extremists who were trained in Lebanon and acted with the support of the Iranian government.

Sayegh's arrest and the Canadian and Saudi assistance in tracking him represent "another positive step forward in our mutual efforts to solve this tragic act of terrorism," the FBI statement said.

U.S. Justice Department officials have been openly critical of Saudi Arabia for shutting FBI agents out of active participation in the investigation. Assistant FBI Director Robert M. Bryant told Congress last month that the FBI still had "ongoing and serious concerns" about lack of Saudi cooperation in investigating the bombing.

Canadian Judge Rules Saudi Bombing Suspect Is Threat to National Security, The Washington Post - Howard Schneider, May 6, 1997

OTTAWA, May 5 -- A Saudi man held here as a suspect in a bomb attack that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia last summer will be deported because of his involvement in international terrorism, a Canadian federal court judge ruled today.

Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh, 28, chose not to testify at a hearing called here to let him respond to charges that, as a member of a terrorist group known as Saudi Hezbollah, he scouted an apartment building housing U.S. military personnel at Dharhan in advance of the bombing and drove one of three vehicles involved in the attack.

The explosion, which injured more than 400 people in the building, was characterized by President Clinton as an act of war against the United States. U.S. authorities have said it was coordinated by Hezbollah, or Party of God, an Iranian-backed militant Islamic group that is based in Lebanon and said to have ties to Saudi Hezbollah.

Sayegh, who claimed refugee status when he entered Canada in August, denied in interviews that he was involved in the bombing. He said he was in Syria at the time, having fled his native country because, as a member of its Shiite Muslim minority, he was being persecuted.

But at today's hearing he did not repeat those claims, and Judge Donna McGillis said she found the evidence of his membership in Hezbollah and involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing compelling enough to bar him from Canada.

"Given the very detailed information linking Mr. al-Sayegh [to the bombing] . . . his membership in Saudi Hezbollah and his false refugee claim. . . . I have no hesitation in concluding" that he poses a threat to national security and should be deported, McGillis found.

Much of the evidence compiled in the case by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was withheld even from Sayegh and his lawyer, kept under seal on national security grounds. The evidence that has been released by McGillis consists largely of press clippings and academic articles on Hezbollah and contentions by the security service that the group had established an "infrastructure" in Canada.

Sayegh's lawyer, Doug Baum, said Sayegh decided on his own not to testify and emphasized that the proceeding was only to determine his admissibility to Canada under immigration law, not to try him for a crime. Sayegh was arrested in Ottawa March 18 on suspicion of posing a security threat.

"This isn't a criminal trial," Baum said. "We are not here to determine guilt or innocence."

Sayegh is not yet facing any criminal charges or warrants that would cause U.S. officials to request his extradition. And Canadian officials, though in close touch with U.S. authorities as they assembled information leading to his arrest, discouraged early requests by Washington to interview him in Canada because the case was an immigration matter.

Now that the initial stage of the immigration case has concluded, Canadian national security officials said they would open discussions with the United States about how and when it might get to interrogate Sayegh.

The U.S. Justice Department still wants to interview Sayegh, but is continuing to mull over what legal maneuvers it can take to cope with Canadian law, staff writer Pierre Thomas reported from Washington. "We would, at some point, wish to talk to that individual, but we don't know until we have those conversations what the intonation might be," FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press."

However, with Sayegh now certified as a threat to Canadian security, the case is out of the security service's hands as well. In the wake of McGillis' ruling, Sayegh's file shifts to Canada's Immigration Review Board for what Baum called a pro forma hearing to order his deportation. After that, it will be up to Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard to decide where to send him.

According to immigration spokeswoman Joanne John, Robillard has limited discretion. She can only deport a person to the country where he was born, currently holds citizenship or last resided, or to the country from which he came to Canada.

Sayegh was born in Saudi Arabia and holds Saudi citizenship, but was living in Syria, he said, before arriving in Canada. He did stop in Boston en route to Ottawa, and that could give Robillard a pretext for sending him to the United States.

F22 or Catch 22?, The Washington Post - Ron Lippock, February 8, 1997

I sat up in my chair when I read the excerpt from a Lockheed Martin sales brochure in "The Fine Print" section of the Sept. 8 issue of The Washington Post Magazine. The brochure stated that the F-22 wa needed because "sophisticated fighter airplanes and air defense systems are being sold around the world." To demonstrate this point, a world map produced for the Lockheed Martin sales brochure showed aircraft that had been sold to various countries.

These countries indeed are all over the world. Countries with F-16s shown on the map include Europea allies such as Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and Portugal; as well as Venezuela, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Bahrain, Pakistan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea.

I was confused, then, to read in The Post's front-page story of Jan. 31 that the sale of more than 100 F-16s to Saudi Arabia "would bring more work to Lockheed's Fort Worth plant, lowering costs on the Ai Force's planned $73-billion F-22 jet program."

Wait a minute -- am I to understand that we need the F-22 because too many sophisticated fighter plane are scattered around the world, but we need to export more F-16s in order to afford the F-22?

I thought I must be missing something. I read on until I stumbled over this line: "One industry official sai the U.S. government is considering easing Israeli objections [to the F-16 sale to Saudi Arabia] by offering to sell them F-22s. It would be the first `stealthy' radar-evading U.S. jet ever sold overseas." Is it just me, or are others also wondering whether we really need this F-22 so much that we're willing to export around the world the threat it's intended to protect us from?

Saudis release child prisoners, The Times, January 10, 1997

A NIGHTMARE ended yesterday for 13 Pakistani children who returned home from Saudi Arabia after a year, where they had been in prison with their parents on drug-smuggling charges. 

Tired and hungry, the children stumbled off a flight that had been delayed for more than 24 hours in Saudi Arabia. The children were granted amnesty after government talks between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but their parents face the death penalty if convicted. They and their parents, members of an extended peasant family, were arrested at Jeddah a year ago and accused of carrying heroin packed in rubber bags in their stomachs. 

Freedom from a Saudi jail might have brought an end to the ordeal of the rest of the children, but not to Shahnaz Ahmed, five. While her mother faces trial in Saudi Arabia, her father, grandmother and several other close relatives are in Pakistani jails on drug charges and there was no one to meet her at the airport. Shahnaz was temporarily lodged in an orphanage until arrangements were made to move her to join her grandmother in jail. 

Seven of the children, who are aged between three and 15, will stay with relatives in Lahore while five others were sent to villages in other parts of Punjab and Northwest Frontier Province.

Al Gore's Arab Money Man :The story of a suspended ambassadorial nomination, The American Spectator - Kenneth R. Timmerman, November 1, 1997

Clinton-Gore hubris knows no bounds. In the thick of the campaign finance hearings on Capitol Hill, the White House has nominated a controversial DNC fundraiser, Edward M. Gabriel, to become United States Ambassador to Morocco, a key country to the Middle East peace process.

 

Gabriel's name was formally submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 8, before the FBI had completed its background investigation into Gabriel's finances, business connections, or personal life. Perhaps the White House was hoping Jesse Helms and his staff would be contrite for blocking ex-Massachusetts governor William Weld from becoming ambassador to Mexico, or that Gabriel's tobacco-lobbyist wife, Kathleen "Buffy" Linehan (who works for Phillip Morris), would suffice to woo tobacco-stater Helms.

 

As it turned out, the moment was ill-timed, and the candidate ill-starred. A scant ten days later, as we reported on The American Spectator's web site on September 18, the White House was forced to turn over  Gabriel's file to the Justice Department for further investigation of allegations tying him to murky Arab campaign donations to the DNC and the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign.A few hours before Lebanese financier Roger Tamraz was to testify before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, committee staffers received a mysterious call from someone claiming to be Tamraz who alleged that Tamraz had been solicited by Gabriel to donate $50,000 to the DNC through the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based non-profit group. Gabriel called the allegation "science fiction," and in his public testimony later that day, Tamraz said he had not made the phone call and didn't know Gabriel. Nevertheless Jesse Helms announced he was postponing Gabriel's confirmation hearing "indefinitely."

 

Two things are certain about this curious case: Ed Gabriel has powerful enemies, and he made them by hitching his wagon to two highly controversial Arab-American lobbyists in Washington: James Zogby and Abdulrahman Alamoudi. In the "bad old days" when the State Department and Congress still considered the PLO a terrorist organization, both men were staunch backers of Yasir Arafat. More recently, Zogby has called on Arab states to reinvigorate the secondary boycott against Israel, which aims to deter U.S. companies by threatening to ban them from contracts in the Arab world if they do business with Israel.

 

Meanwhile, Alamoudi, who heads the American Muslim Council that was invited to the White House by Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Muslim Eid holidays, has been raising funds for "charitable" organizations whose branches in Gaza and the West Bank were closed down in late September by none other than Arafat. The PLO chairman accused them of supporting the military wing of Hamas, the radical Islamic group that has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings in Israel. Zogby, Gabriel, and Alamoudi sat together on the steering committee of Arab Americans for Clinton/Gore '96 and frequently appear at functions organized by Zogby's Arab American Institute.

 

Given these connections, one could easily suspect the pro-Israeli lobby of seeking to sabotage Gabriel's nomination. Not only has Gabriel supported radical Arab causes, but if confirmed would serve in a moderate Arab country whose ruler, King Hassan II, has long been an "honest broker" between Israel and its Arab neighbors and protected Morocco's Jewish community.

 

TAS was itself tipped off to Gabriel by an anonymous source who called several days before Gabriel's nomination became public knowledge. Claiming to be a former DNC employee, the caller made detailed allegations about Gabriel's activities as a fundraiser for Clinton-Gore and ties to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and Vice President Al Gore, his biggest backer at the White House. None of the pro-Israeli organizations and lobbyists we contacted was aware of Gabriel's pending nomination, nor did any have him on their radar screen.

 

In subsequent conversations, the anonymous "former DNC employee" alleged that Gabriel served as a conduit for campaign contributions to the DNC from Arab businessmen in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria. The source claimed the funds were solicited by Gabriel, and occasionally by Zogby, and were deposited into accounts controlled by Zogby's Arab American Institute, which then paid out the moneys to Arab Americans who could legally contribute to the campaign. "These are people who have no resources, who are not on the board of any organization," the source said about these nominal donors. "They sent in checks of $1,000, $5,000, occasionally $10,000, but never more. We're talking about several hundred thousand dollars in soft and hard money." 

 

According to FEC records, Gabriel, Zogby, and board members of such groups as the Arab American Institute contributed more than $180,000 to Democratic campaigns during the 1995-1996 cycle. (Other AAI members contributed to Arab-American Republican candidates.) But if our source is correct, this is just the money that appears on the surface.

 

In telephone interviews Zogby admitted to having solicited money for his institute from Arab businessmen, but denied serving as a conduit for donations to the DNC. "Our PAC does not support Democratic causes. It supports Arab-American candidates, both Democrats and Republicans," he said. In a letter to the September 20 Washington Times, he called allegations that he was funneling foreign Arab money into the Clinton-Gore campaign "anti-Arab bigotry." "There are Arab businessmen who have contributed to the institute -- that's true," he told TAS. "But there was no money-for-favors. That's an unfair allegation, because it's just not true. I go to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Lebanon, the West Bank regularly. And there are people over there who have contributed. But I haven't gone there specifically to solicit contributions." 

But Zogby clearly seems to be hiding something. Three times we went to his offices to request a copy of his institute's tax forms -- as a nonprofit group it is required by law to make them available on its premises -- and each time Zogby refused to show them to us. Zogby claims his institute operates on a $700,000 annual budget, but the "former DNC employee" who called us said AAI distributed between $1 and $2 million in 1996. Without the tax forms, which Zogby has illegally withheld, there is no way to determine who is telling the truth. At least three congressional committees  are now investigating Gabriel and Zogby and the possibility of an "Arabgate" at the DNC. 

It turns out that Gabriel and Zogby's most determined enemies are not American Jews, but Lebanese-Americans bitterly opposed to Syria's illegal occupation of Lebanon and the U.S.'s acceptance of this state of affairs. Last July the State Department, following a major lobbying effort on behalf of the Syrian-controlled Lebanese government of billionaire Rafic Hariri, lifted its ban on travel to Lebanon. Gabriel and Zogby played central roles in this effort. The lifting means U.S. business is now free to invest in projects controlled by Hariri and his Saudi and Syrian partners. 

Gabriel used his position as a founder and executive committee member of a Hariri-supported nonprofit, the pro-Syrian American Task Force for Lebanon (ATFL), to lobby Congress and the administration to have the travel ban lifted. In this activity he was aided by Zogby, who serves with Gabriel on the ATFL board, just as Gabriel served on the governing board of Zogby's Arab American Institute.

As George Cody, executive director of the ATFL and one of Gabriel's biggest supporters, told TAS: "Ed Gabriel has been very instrumental on the travel ban. He has raised this at every opportunity, including during meetings with Vice President Gore and with President Clinton." Cody went even further: "Gabriel is being supported in this nomination [as ambassador to Morocco] by Gore. He has an excellent relationship with the VP and with the president." Though Cody personally recalled paying three visits to the White House with Zogby and Gabriel, other sources tell TAS that Gabriel logged in to visit the vice president at the White House no fewer than seventeen times. Neither the vice president's office nor the White House Counsel's office would respond to questions about Gabriel, his ties to Gore, his fundraising activities, or his business and lobbying activities, despite repeated requests. Nor would they authorize Gabriel to comment before his nomination hearing.

Gabriel's ATFL has received two grants from the Clinton administration: $100,000 from the Agency for International Development in 1993 to host a conference on Lebanon, and another $25,000 in 1995 to conduct a symposium on Lebanon's capital markets -- a topic of great interest to Hariri, who has single-handedly floated several hundred million dollars in Lebanese government bonds on the international market to support his construction projects.

What may finally do in Gabriel's nomination, however, could have little to do with Lebanon. For one thing, there are his ties to Al Gore. Zogby and Cody both acknowledge that Gore was the driving force behind Gabriel's nomination, and that Gabriel was a regular White House visitor as both DNC fundraiser and board member of Arab-American organizations. Said one White House source, "Zogby came in here and pounded on the table in front of the vice president, and said you've got to appoint this guy." When we asked Zogby whether he'd lobbied Gore on Gabriel's behalf, Zogby called Gabriel "as qualified as anybody else I've seen." Although Gabriel is Lebanese American, he does not speak Arabic, or any other foreign language, and has no foreign affairs experience. 

Also under scrutiny are Gabriel's links to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, who's already the subject of a Justice Department preliminary probe that could lead to the appointment of an independent counsel. Gabriel, a long-time friend of O'Leary's, invited her to be guest of honor at a $100,000 DNC fundraiser that he held at his Washington home in the summer of 1996. On the r‚sum‚ distributed by the White House, Gabriel is listed as an "energy consultant." But the background bio that's being circulated by the ATFL in support of his nomination states he worked as an "adviser to Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary."

The most explosive of Ed Gabriel's many explosive contacts may be with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. In late 1993 or early 1994, TAS has learned,  a  Gabriel associate named Tracy Chamoun, along with Lebanese businessman Charles Chidiac, approached Iraq's U.N. ambassador Nizar Hamdoon with an indelicate proposition. According to one of the participants, as well as other sources with knowledge of the meeting, the pair told Hamdoon they were so plugged into the Clinton administration they could "guarantee" a lifting of the U.N. oil embargo on Iraq. Chamoun's lobbying partner in this effort, the sources said, was to be Edward M. Gabriel himself. The asking price for this very special service: $5 million! The Iraqi ambassador reportedly laughed off Chamoun's presumptuousness and dismissed the offer out of hand. Conveniently for Gabriel, Chamoun's husband told us she was out of the country and could not be reached for several weeks -- perhaps not until after Gabriel's confirmation hearing? That is, if Jesse Helms ever puts it on the calendar.

A Real Prince Owner Who Comes From Royalty Has Impressive Stable of Fillies, Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1997

In the Turf Club at Santa Anita the other day, Prince Ahmed Salman took out his wallet--it didn't appear to be bulging--and produced a snapshot.

   Three little girls. Triplets. Just over a year old.

   The prince beamed.

   Then he produced another snapshot.

   Another little girl, 5 years old.

   The prince beamed again.

"Is there an omen here?" Salman asked. "I have four daughters and I am running these good fillies in the Breeders' Cup."

The prince, a nephew of King Fahd and a member of the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, is big on omens and superstition. The day before this year's Kentucky Derby, he ran Sharp Cat in the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs and she bore out in the stretch, prompting the stewards to
disqualify her, dropping her from third to eighth place.

"He gave an interview before that race," said his general manager, Richard Mulhall. "Then another time in Kentucky, he gave an interview and he had bad luck. That was the end of the pre-race interviews. After a race, he'll talk all you want."

Salman also doesn't want his picture taken in the paddock before a race. His security people have been known to politely shoo photographers away.

"Why are you then giving this interview?" the prince was asked this day at Santa Anita.

"The Breeders' Cup is more than a week away," he said. "But the closer we get to the races, the more superstitious I will become."

If there's strength in numbers, bad luck will take the hindmost for Salman in the 14th Breeders' Cup. In a partnership with Richard Stephen, the women's sportswear manufacturer from Manhattan Beach, Salman will be running Jewel Princess in the Distaff on Saturday at Hollywood Park, and the prince is running a filly he owns outright, Sharp Cat, in the same
race.

Jewel Princess, winner of last year's Distaff at Woodbine, and Sharp Cat, who has won five stakes in California and one in New York this year, will be coupled in the betting because of the overlapping ownership and could go off the favorite.

Those are Salman's big guns, but his arsenal includes three others Saturday--Crafty Friend in the Sprint, Fantastic Fellow in the Mile and Double Honor in the Juvenile.

Allen and Madeleine Paulson, who raced two-time horse-of-the-year Cigar, will also have five Breeders' Cup starters, but few owners get to the paddock that often in this event. The record, held by the late Gene Klein, is seven horses--four in one race--when he came away with a win by Success Express in the Juvenile at Hollywood 10 years ago.

Salman says that he doesn't care which of his Breeders' Cup horses
wins, but his close associates know better.

"The one he'd really like to see win is Sharp Cat," said Mulhall, who joined the prince in 1994 after a 36-year training career in California. "Sharp Cat is his baby."

Sharp Cat, a daughter of Storm Cat out of an Ack Ack mare, was up for auction at the Barretts sale of unraced 2-year-olds in Pomona in 1996. Before the sale, Salman asked the opinion of Wayne Lukas, who hadn't trained for the prince for several years. Lukas loved Sharp Cat. And he's trained dozens of Storm Cat's offspring, among them Tabasco Cat, the Preakness-Belmont winner in 1994.

"That filly [Sharp Cat] is the real goods," Lukas said. "But she's not going to be cheap."

Without blinking or sending home to Riyadh for his allowance, Salman bought Sharp Cat for $900,000, a record for a 2-year-old filly.

Minutes after the gavel dropped, Salman walked over to Lukas and stuffed the signed sales ticket into his breast pocket.

"She's yours," he said, and with that Lukas had picked up another plutocrat for a client. Lukas has eight of the prince's horses in training, and will saddle Double Honor and Fantastic Fellow, besides Sharp Cat, on Saturday.

Jewel Princess and Crafty Friend will be sent over from trainer Wally Dollase's barn.

Asked Monday to describe Salman, Dollase said: "He's a comedian."

Indeed. At Santa Anita, Salman asked with the best deadpan how much a reporter was paying for his interview.

"I am 38 years old," he said. "But of course I will be 39 on Nov. 17. But I would like to stay 38 for as long as I can."

Dollase remembers the morning at Hollywood Park when he was scheduled to work Jewel Princess and Crafty Friend.

"The workouts were set for 7:15, sharp, and everybody knew," he said. "Richard Mulhall was there, another of the prince's representatives, from Saudi Arabia, was there, but there was no prince."

Somebody made a phone call.

"I am on the way down to Del Mar," the prince said.

"Del Mar?" the caller said. "But the workouts are at Hollywood Park."

"In that case, I will not be able to be there in time," the prince said.

Finishing the story, Dollase did a charade of a man going to sleep.

At auctions for young horses, Salman is always alert. In the U.S. alone, he spent about $16 million in 1996. There's more to his wherewithal than family oil. He runs a publishing empire that produces 19 newspapers and magazines and employs 3,000 people. Elle magazine in
Arabic will happen soon, the prince said, and he didn't seem to be kidding.

He holds a degree from UC Irvine and has been racing horses in California, off and on, since the early 1980s. He owns a small farm in Bradbury and a 300-acre place in Saudi Arabia, employs 10 trainers world-wide and won't say how many horses he owns. That superstition thing again.

His goals are to win the Kentucky Derby and the European classics. One of his brothers, Fahd Salman, won the Epsom Derby with Generous in 1994.

For a time, Sharp Cat seemed destined for this year's Kentucky Derby. But she ran sixth in the Santa Anita Derby, after a speed duel with Silver Charm, who was second at Santa Anita, first at Churchill Downs.

Lukas, his large stable bereft of any good Kentucky Derby colts this year, wanted to run Sharp Cat.

"She wasn't good enough to win the Santa Anita Derby, so we never considered the Kentucky Derby," Salman said. "It was all the media was talking about it."

Told that reporters were only reflecting what Lukas was saying, Salman said:

"Yes, I suppose that was it. I should know how the media works. I was just letting Lukas talk."

Last Sunday at Santa Anita, Salman was seen leading Ryafan into the winner's circle after she had won the Yellow Ribbon Stakes. Ryafan races for her breeder, Juddmonte Farms, which is owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah, Salman's uncle. Ryafan is a son of Lear Fan, who sired
Fantastic Fellow.

"Lear Fan is the reason I am in racing," Salman said. "He was a very good miler, a Group I winner in France. I bought him for $60,000 and later sold him for $2 million, plus keeping some breeding rights."

In Salman's colors, in the first Breeders' Cup ever run, Lear Fan finished seventh in the Mile at Hollywood Park in 1984. Going into Saturday's races, that's one omen the prince can do without.

Deceptive Stability, Time Magazine - Joanna McGeary & Dean Fischer -  January 15, 1997

SAUDI ARABIA HAS UNDERGONE A SMOOTH TRANSITION OF POWER. WHEN WILL IT FACE ITS DEEPENING PROBLEMS?

 

THE CONCEPT OF STABILITY TAKES ON new meaning when power is passing from the 11th son of a king to the 13th, the 12th being deceased. In the 63-year-old kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the House of Saud reigns as absolutely as any feudal dynasty, all power that matters lies in the hands of the man who wears the ruler's headdress--at least so long as 1,000 brothers, sons and grandsons agree. It was reassuring last week when the lean and healthy 72-year-old Crown Prince Abdullah--next in seniority--stepped into the shoes of his ailing half brother King Fahd, 74. Fahd turned over "management" of the government to his long-established heir apparent while he recuperates from a stroke in November. Not only was this transfer of power untroubled, but Abdullah's appointment also ends any speculation that he might not succeed Fahd when the present monarch dies. All very orderly and calm.

Stability is not the only quality a state needs, however; it must also be able to adapt. Saudi society is changing far faster than the royal family's autocratic system of running it. Political dissent, charges of corruption, financial decline and palace intrigue have been troubling the country as never before under Fahd, a rapid modernizer with decidedly Western tastes. He has had an enthusiastic relationship with the U.S., one that Abdullah is expected to continue, although at a slightly cooler temperature.

But how can Abdullah, a tradition-bound conservative with a taste for falconry and fast camels, handle the complex demands of a rapidly modernizing state? Though Saudi Arabia is not in crisis yet, it must begin to reform soon. Abdullah's challenge is to find a way to diminish royal prerogatives without alienating the senior princes whose support he needs to rule.

The pressures are rising just as oil revenues fall. Riyadh, meanwhile, is paying down the $60 billion-plus cost of the Gulf War. The $40 billion budget submitted last week shows a $5 billion deficit. That is not good news for a government that has kept power by financing a super-rich welfare state, and the transition to living within reduced means will be hard to make. The greater emphasis on privatization and independent development demanded by Saudi entrepreneurs runs smack into the interests of princes used to considering the nation's treasure as their family patrimony. Now the business elite is muttering about political reforms to give commoners a say in government decisions.

Islamic dissidents who clamor for stricter adherence to Koranic law have effectively exploited the issue of corruption. From exile in London, Islamists led by Mohammed al Mass'ari have flooded uncensored faxes into the country alleging the bogus commissions, shell companies, kickbacks and royal land grabs that have poured millions of dollars into the princes' hands. Last week threats from Riyadh finally forced Britain, fearful of losing lucrative military and business contracts, to issue an expulsion order to al Mass'ari. That will hardly silence the fax machines. And later this month, a former minister goes on trial in Riyadh in a case involving multimillion-dollar kickbacks for government contracts, a dramatic airing of corruption charges that cannot help but damage the country's rulers.

To tackle the issue of royal patronage, Abdullah would have to confront the senior princes most guilty of enriching themselves. But how can he do so and hope to stay in power? Abdullah can rule only with the consensus of those same princes. There are persistent rumors of tension between him and Fahd's six full brothers, who occupy most of the key posts and have used their jobs egregiously, critics say, to amass huge fortunes. With $10 billion earned largely from commissions on arms sales, Prince Sultan, 71, is one of the most notorious, but, as next in line, he is almost certain to be designated the new heir apparent. As a counterweight, Abdullah has cultivated the sons of his half brother the late King Faisal, including Prince Saud, the able Foreign Minister, and Prince Turki, director of foreign intelligence.

Despite such divisions in the house, the continuity exemplified by Abdullah's ascendancy is likely to continue. Three years ago, Fahd issued a royal decree ordering the crown to pass to "the most upright," not necessarily the most senior, among the sons and grandsons of Ibn Saud, founder of modern Saudi Arabia. That might have opened up the succession, but entrenched family practices and princely vested interests preclude a real power struggle that would result only in destroying the monarchy. Yet if the House of Saud fails to introduce meaningful economic and political reforms, which would reduce the power of the royals by lawful means, the dynasty is unlikely to survive very far into the 21st century, no matter how placid the succession from one King to the next.

NEW TRADITIONALIST

Crown Prince Abdullah is known for personal piety and austerity; adheres to the traditional ways of the Bedouin; loves camels, horses and falconry; shares the basic insularity of conservative Saudis and claims primary allegiance from the desert heartland; cultivates ties to the Arab world; is relatively cool to the U.S.

OLD MODERNIST

King Fahd in his youth was a playboy-gambler and suffers ills from that fast life; still indulges in luxuries; loves cars, planes and yachts; encouraged rapid development and the education of Saudis abroad, creating a flashy urban class; cultivates ties with the U.S.; worked quietly for peace between Arabs and Israel