9/11: FBI has Dallah Avco under Radar

posted by ewing2001 on Saturday August 02, @05:19PM

Saleh Abdullah Kamel, former head Dallah Avco, sued by 9/11 Victims
Al-Bayoumi, former Dallah Avco, founded in 1998
San Diego Company "Masjed al Madinah al Munawarah"

Al-Bayoumi was questioned by FBI NY Times -Aug. 4

Osama Bassnan plans Lawsuit in U.S. Arab News (08/05)

ABC/AP -August 2, 2003

Photos: Private Dallah Avco Boeing 727-51
Saleh Abdullah Kamel, Chairman of Dallah Al Baraka Group, Saudi Arabia

"...Another connection for U.S. authorities is a Saudi businessman named Saleh Abdullah Kamel, who heads Dallah al-Baraka Group (DBG).

Al-Jubeir said al-Bayoumi once worked for Dallah Avco, a DBG company involved with the Saudi government's aviation department. That department is overseen by Prince Sultan, the father of the princess in Washington and another member of the royal family.

Advertisement

Kamel has been sued by families of some of the Sept. 11 victims who allege Saudi support for terrorism. The families allege his name appeared in a late 1980s document recovered in Bosnia identifying potential financial support for bin Laden's mujahadeen fighters when bin Laden was still a U.S. ally fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan..."

Findlaw on Dallah Albaraka Group

Findlaw.com

Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation

907. Al Baraka Investment & Development Corporation (or “al Baraka”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Dallah Albaraka Group, is based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Its investments include 43 subsidiaries, mainly banks in Arab and Islamic countries. Most of them are known as or registered as “al Baraka Bank.” United States assets include al Baraka Bancorp Inc. in Chicago, Illinois, and al Baraka Bancorp Inc. in Houston, Texas.

908. A memo from the Russia Federation’s Security Service details the al Baraka Bank’s role in funding Defendant al-Haramain:

On existing knowledge, part of the obtained financing comes from the charitable collections (Zakat) and goes to the personal foreign accounts of field commanders, including Khattab and Basayef.

909. Al Baraka Bank provided Osama bin Laden with financial infrastructures in Sudan beginning in 1983. For example, the use of al Baraka Bank by al-Haramain was confirmed by a statement from al-Haramain chairman, Aqueel al-Aqueel, who declared that the charity maintained accounts at Al Baraka bank in Saudi Arabia.

910. Al Baraka Investment & Development is mostly present in the Sudanese banking sector, through assets held in Algharb Islamic Bank, al Shamal Islamic Bank, Faisal Islamic Bank, Sudanese Islamic Bank and Tadamon Islamic Bank. Al Baraka is also affiliated with the National Development Bank in Sudan.

911. Defendant Saleh Abdullah Kamel, was born in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, in 1941. After being the adviser to the Saudi Minister of Finance, he founded in 1969 Dallah Albaraka Group LLC, quickly establishing himself as one of the leading promoters of an Islamic financial and banking system capable of rivaling large Western institutions.

912. Dallah Albaraka Group LLC, a diversified conglomerate based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is involved in various industries, services and financial activities. The group includes 23 banks located mostly in the Arab and Islamic countries, in addition to several investment and financial companies.

913. Dallah Albaraka portfolio includes a wholly owned subsidiary specializing in aviation-services, Dallah Avco Trans-Arabia Co Ltd. The company was formed in 1975 and is based in Jeddah.

914. Two of the hijackers on September 11th of American Airlines Flight 77, Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar received funding from Omar al Bayoumi (a/k/a Abu Imard) a Saudi national who paid their house rent in San Diego. Al Bayoumi is listed as a suspect wanted by the FBI in connection with the September 11th attacks.

915. Omar al Bayoumi was Assistant to the Director of Finance for Dallah Avco, reference he gave in an application for admission to a doctoral program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1998.

916. On May 5, 1998, Omar Al Bayoumi registered a fictious company name called Masjed al Madinah al Munawarah (Masjid al Madinah al Munawarah) based in San Diego, California.

917. In March 25, 1999 a mosque was registered in the state of Pennsylvania under the name of Masjid al Madinah al Munawwarah Inc.

918. Dallah Albaraka financial arm is al Baraka Investment & Development (or “ABID”), a wholly owned subsidiary based in Jeddah.

919. Saleh Abdullah Kamel, Chairman of Dallah al Baraka and al Baraka Bank was one of the three founding members of al Shamal Islamic Bank in 1983, along with a Sudanese company, al Shamal for Investment and Development and the Government of Northern State, then controlled by Governor Mutasin Abdel-Rahim, representative of Hassan al-Turabi.

920. The involvement of Dallah Albaraka Group and al Baraka Bank in providing financial support and assistance to terrorist organizations is also revealed in the financing of the HAMAS terrorist group.

921. In 1998, al Aqsa Islamic Bank was established with $20 million in capital. Its main shareholders were Dallah al Baraka and the Jordan Islamic Bank. Jordan Islamic Bank, a Dallah al-Baraka subsidiary, owns 14 percent of al-Aqsa. Saleh Abdullah Kamel acknowledged that Dallah al-Baraka owns another 12 percent directly.

922. Since 1998, Israel had refused to approve the bank, citing its obvious ties with HAMAS. At the beginning of 2001, several antiterrorist authorities from that country even visited Citibank’s headquarters in New York to warn its directors of the nature of the bank’s activities.

923. Al Baraka Bank provided support to Al Haramain operations and helped transfer funds for Osama bin Laden operations as reported by the Bosnian Intelligence Agency (Agency for Investigation and Documentation – AID) in a memorandum titled “Some illegal activities of humanitarian organizations investigated by the relevant investigative bodies of the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina (FbiH)”:

Records available for 1998 show a flow of money into the so-called “operating” account of the HO [Humanitarian Organization] at the Deposti Bank, Sarajevo, from the “main” account, sent from Saudi Arabia via the Deutsche Bank and the Albaraka Bank in Turkey. The amount is 1,059,687 DEM [$2.13 million].

924. Al Baraka Turkish Finance House, al Baraka branch in Turkey is a subsidiary of Dallah al Baraka Company.

925. A Bosnian Intelligence memo regarding the activities of al-Haramain states the following:

Given all the above security factors, we believe that the clear lack of any concrete humanitarian projects indicates that the existence of this HO [Humanitarian Organization] was a fictitious cover . . .

926. The report establishes al-Haramain’s role in financing and assisting Osama bin Laden operations.

[t]he Saudi HO [Humanitarian Organization] al-Haramain, . . . has acted as a channel for financing the activites of terrorist organizations. . . . According to available intelligence, the Sarajevo office assisted the terrorist organization Gama al Islamija, while members of bin Laden’s el Itihad al Islamija (AIAI) terrorist groups were employed at the Somalia offices, which also financed their operations.

927. Additional allegations regarding Defendant al-Haramain are detailed below.

See also Findlaw Guide to the 9-11 Lawsuit

Update: Al-Bayoumi wants to meet FBI or CIA

"..In his first interview since his name was raised in a U.S. Congressional report that questioned Saudi Arabia's commitment to the war on terror, Omar al-Bayoumi told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television Sunday that he had done nothing wrong.

"I am ready to sit with American investigators, whether from the FBI or the CIA, in the presence of Saudi investigators and on Saudi land," he said.

Al-Bayoumi said he wrote to the Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef, telling him he was ready for the questioning..."

Osama Bassnan plans Lawsuit in U.S.

JEDDAH, 5August 2003 — Osama Bassnan, the Saudi citizen mentioned in the congressional report on Sept. 11 attacks, has said he and fellow Saudi Omar Al-Bayoumi were merely casual acquaintances.

The two men and their families frequented the same mosque in Claremont Mesa Boulevard in San Diego, California, where the two men’s wives socialized more frequently.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, Bassnan said he planned to bring a lawsuit against those responsible for his and his wife’s arrest last October. He was held for a period of 85 days, which Bassnan claims was a source of anguish.

U.S. Questions Saudi Friend of Hijackers

NY Times -Aug. 4

Aug. 4 — F.B.I. agents have interviewed a Saudi citizen identified by Congressional investigators as a likely intelligence operative for Riyadh who befriended two of the 9/11 hijackers in California more than a year before the attacks, government officials said today.

The interview today in Saudi Arabia was the first of two scheduled sessions between investigators and the Saudi, Omar al-Bayoumi, who was living as a student in San Diego in early 2000 when he met Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, 2 of the 15 Saudis who came to the United States to train for the hijackings.

The officials said that in the interview Mr. Bayoumi denied any advance knowledge of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, although officials cautioned that the questioning was incomplete and that a number of questions remained to be asked about his activities in the United States.

<  9/11 Report - The real Saudi Ties are U.S. Ties | After 9/11: Pentagon met with Iran-Contra Figure  >