Osama bin Laden's extensive financial interests in Britain were outlined yesterday in a French parliamentary report that says the City of London financial center is a money-laundering haven for billions of dollars of tainted and terrorist money.
Up to 40 companies, banks and individuals based in Britain can legitimately be suspected of maintaining direct or indirect relations with the terrorist, according to a 70-page annex, The Economic Environment of Osama bin Laden, attached to the French report.
Compiled by an independent team of financial experts whose identity the French parliamentarians have undertaken not to reveal, the annex reveals that the structure of bin Laden's financial network bears a striking similarity to that used by the collapsed BCCI bank for its fraudulent operations in the 1980s.
"This document clearly shows the great permeability of the British banking and financial system and the fragility of the controls operated at its points of entry," write the authors of the French report.
The annex establishes numerous links between bin Laden and international arms and oil dealers -- and even members of the Saudi elite.
It also pinpoints the relationship and its subsequent breakdown between Osama bin Laden and his family's holding company, Saudi BinLadin Group, and its multiple subsidiaries, investments and offshoots in Europe.
Many of the individuals concerned, several with British connections, were also involved in various senior roles with BCCI, the report says. Hundreds of banks and companies are mentioned, from Sudan, Geneva and London to Oxford, the Bahamas and Riyadh.
The names of half a dozen former BCCI clients and officials, including Ghaith Pharaon, wanted by the US authorities for fraud, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker who was closely involved with the bank before it was closed down by the Bank of England in 1991, recur throughout the annex and are directly linked to bin Laden through banks, holding companies, foundations and charities, at least one of which, the International Development Foundation, has its headquarters in London.
"The convergence of financial and terrorist interests, apparent particularly in Great Britain and in Sudan, does not appear to have been an obstacle with regard to the objectives pursued [by bin Laden]," the annex concludes.
The bin Laden study appears as an appendix to a French parliamentarian's report that blames lax and outdated legislation, inadequate enforcement and the lack of political will to challenge powerful commercial interests for the city's status as a global money-laundering center.
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