The Saudi man who flew to Karachi on Sept. 11 is believed to have been Mustafa Ahmad. Sheikh Abdullah did not say which UAE bank or banks were involved in the money transfers.
The financial links between the bin Laden organization and suspected terrorist cells in Germany are also beginning to emerge.
At the weekend, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank said it had provided investigators with information on accounts linked to members of Osama bin Laden's family.
According to the news weekly Der Spiegel, Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest commercial bank, handled accounts for the bin Laden family worth DM314 million (US$145 million). German law generally prohibits the publication of data about bank clients, but Deutsche Bank gave authorities a list of less than 10 accounts it suspected were linked to terrorists or terrorist activities days after the attacks. Among those listed were accounts held by the bin Laden family, Der Spiegel reported.
According to the economics ministry in Berlin, 13 accounts in Germany have been blocked since the start of the financial clampdown on al-Qaeda last week. The accounts had an overall balance of DM2.7 million.
No information on the account holders has been released. However, security officials said evidence existed of links between suspects living in Germany before the attacks and Mamduh Mahmud Salim, a Sudanese man who is awaiting trial in the US on charges of belonging to bin Laden's terrorist network. He was arrested in Bavaria in 1998.
Seven of the suspects on the FBI's initial list were traced to universities in the northern port city of Hamburg. Three were among those who died in the attacks. Four are missing.
Among those thought to be on the run is the man tentatively identified by investigators as the logistical mainstay of the Hamburg cell -- Said Bahaji, a 26-year-old German of Moroccan origin.
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