Abdurahman Alamoudi Last Updated: January 12, 2009
His revealed history is stark evidence of the extent to which America's
enemies have purchased access to its defense systems and policy makers.
A
hard-wired Middle East money connection for Bill Clinton as well as George W. Bush, Abdurahman Alamoudi was a regular White House
guest of both Presidents. That all ended in late 2003, when he was arrested on
terror finance charges. He eventually pled guilty and received a 22 year prison
sentence.
Alamoudi's wealthy brothers in Saudi Arabia had sent more than a
half-million dollars to his personal accounts. There are numerous reasons (included
in this profile) to believe that three years later, Bill Clinton accepted $20 million from one of
those brothers.
For more than a decade Alamoudi had been been officially
praised as a leading spokesman for "Muslim Moderates". In 1993 Clinton gave
him authority to select all Muslim chaplains for the miltary. Nine years
later, Bush's FBI Director extolled him in a speech at an Alamoudi charity
dinner.
During all the years between, Abdurahman (alias Abdul Rahman)
Alamoudi funneled many millions of dollars to terrorist groups, mostly through a
network (SAAR Foundation) of US based
charities, businesses and Muslim advocacy fronts.
He was born 1951 in
Eritrea, North Africa, one of five brothers. There's little public information about
his early years, except that his family was wealthy, graduated Cairo University in
1975 and came to the US four years later.
Alamoudi became a naturalized
citizen in 1996, the year after he and another later-charged terror banker, Yassin Al-Qadi, funded a new Boston software
firm named Ptech.
With fewer than 30 employees, Ptech was then inexplicably
given management control of the US Government's highest-security IT systems,
including the Departments of Defense, State, Justice, Energy and Transportation. In
fact, Ptech redesigned the FAA's National Airspace System, in operation on September
11,
Throughout his years of presidential access and influence, US security
officials had extensive evidence of Abdurahman
Alamoudi's terror finance involvement. There was a steady stream of publicized
cases and events that tied him directly to Hamas, Hezbolah and Al Qaeda. Among
them:
* As early as 1993, confessed Hamas operative Mohammed Salah identified the
United Association for Studies and Research(UASR) as the terror group's US "command
center." Alamoudi was UASR's Founding Secretary.
* In 1994, "Blind Sheik" Omar
Rahman was charged (and later convicted) with plotting the '93 World Trade Center
bombing. A top aide, Mohammed Haggag, testified that the Sheikh's money came from Abdurahman Alamoudi, who got it directly from
Osama bin Laden.
*That same year, Alamoudi sponsored the US visit of
Sudan's Islamic militant head HassanTurabi, then providing safe harbor for Osama bin
Laden.
*Alamoudi's co-investor in finance firm (BMI), and co-director of Muslim
group CAIR, was declared a global terrorist in 1995. Abu Marzouk, deputy head of
HAMAS, was deported after two years in prison, and later indicted on other terror
charges. As of 2008 Marzouk was in Syria, a fugitive and still #2 in
HAMAS.
*In 1997, FBI terror-finance chief Robert Wright identified Alamoudi's company,
Ptech, and partner Yassin Al-Qadi, as direct
funders of al qaeda. Wright was ordered to drop the case, demoted when he
refused, and the documented proof Wright developed wasn't made public until after
9/11.
*Alamoudi's American Muslim Foundation gave $2000 to Tarik Hamdi, who
personally delivered a satellite phone to bin Laden in 1998.
* In 2000, two
later identified 9/11 plotters flew from Germany to meet with Alamoudi. One of them
led Mohamed Atta's prayer group in Hamburg, and shared an apartment with Ramsi
Binalshibh, officially identified as the intended 20th hijacker.
*Alamoudi's
various operations were among nearly a hundred others interacting through the Saudi
conglomerate SAAR Foundation (later named
SAFA Group), which also housed his American Muslim Council in Washington.
In late
August 2001, SAAR Director Saleh Hussayen
arrived from Saudi Arabia to meet with member group leaders, including his
later-indicted nephew Sami Hussayen in Michigan, who'd launched several websites
calling for suicide bomber volunteers.
Most meetings were in Herndon,
Virginia, where dozens of SAAR's entities
were clustered, all of them raided six months later. On September 10th,
Hussayen checked out of his hotel and moved to another nearby, Herndon's Residence
Inn. Also checking in that day were three of the hijackers who would crash into the
Pentagon the next morning. NOTE - There are 21 other hotels or inns within a five
mile radius.
A few days later, FBI agents met with Hussayen, but their
interview never quite got started. Agent-in-charge Michael Gneckow testified that
Hussayen "feigned a seizure" after the first couple of questions. Hussayen was taken
to a hospital where the attending physician determined there was nothing wrong with
him.
He still refused to be interviewed, and Agent Gneckow formally requested
that until he was thoroughly questioned, Hussayen not be allowed to leave the
country. There were published reports that then Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar, (whose wife's monthly checks,
totalling $70,000, inadvertently paid the San Diego bills for two other hijackers),
demanded a different FBI agent.
A few perfunctory questions were reportedly
submitted, without any follow-up. Then, on one of the first flights allowed (White
House expedited) after 9/11, Alamoudi's SAAR
Foundation colleague joined a planeload of prominent Saudis, many also terror-
connected, hastily heading back home. Soon after his arrival, Hussayen was named
Minister of Saudi Arabia's mosques. Many SAAR (SAFA) members have since been charged
and convicted. Some groups have been shut down. Others remain.
On September
14, 2001, Alamoudi joined George W. Bush at
the White House, for a National Prayer Day ceremony. In June 2002, FBI Director
Robert Mueller was keynote
speaker at Alamoudi's American Muslim Council convention. Mueller proclaimed
that AMC was the "main, moderate Muslim group in the United States." One year later,
the US Conference of Catholic Bishops embellished that accolade, proclaiming AMC the
"PREMIER, main moderate Muslim group..."
How, despite his long-known business
fronts, operations support and even public praise for terror groups, could Alamoudi
have remained a White House guest and advisor all those years? Why was direct
evidence repeatedly ignored? Why were anti-terror agents' charges discarded,
documented cases thwarted, even obstructed, by those at the top.
When
his villainous history was finally disclosed in 2004, Newsweek described Abdurahman
as an "expert in the art of deception." A closer look at his background,
however, shows he had no need to deceive, or even remind Presidents Clinton or Bush,
about his real importance to each of
them.
; A CIRCUMSTANTIAL SCENARIO FOR FURTHER SCRUTINY
Arguing against
bail for Alamoudi, prosecutors traced his personal funds back to his four wealthy
brothers in Saudi Arabia, where he too maintained a residence. There are compelling
indications that one of Alamoudi's brothers is Sheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi, known for
his $20 million gift to the Bill Clinton
Foundation in 2007. That's also when he admitted funding a US-based terror group
(inadvertently), nine years earlier.
Sheikh Al-Amoudi is the world's
77th richest person. From accounts in Mid Eastern publications, his early family
details, as well as his looks, are near identical to those of convict Abdurahman Alamoudi.
*The Sheikh, five years
older than the convict, was also born in Eritrea, North Africa (population then less
than one million).
*Each one was born wealthy, his mother Ethiopian, and father
Yemeni.
*Each is one of five brothers with first or middle names including Saleh,
Hussein/Hassan, Abdul/Abdullah and Mohammed.
* Each one's family migrated to
Saudi Arabia, and grew their wealth, first in the construction business.
*Sheikh
Al-Amoudi is the global partner of infamous Saudi banker Khalid bin Mahfouz - their conglomerate is the
Mahfouz /Al-Amoudi Group. Mahfouz founded the charity called Muwafaq, run by
convict Alamoudi's Ptech business partner, current fugitive Yassin Al-Qadi. Mahfouz was also managing
director of BCCI, which prosecutors called
the "largest financial fraud in world history." He and Bill Clinton's #1 fundraiser, Jackson Stephens, arranged BCCI's takeover of several US banks, before it
was indicted and shut down.
One of the two 9/11 plotters who met with convict
Alamoudi in 2000 shared an apartment with Ramzi bin Al-Shibh, officially described
as the intended 20th hijacker. Al-Shibh was also a named organizer of the October
2000 attack on the USS Cole, in the Yemen port of Aden.
The port was
controlled by the Mahfouz/Al-Amoudi Group, which had advance notice of the
ship's arrival.
The terror-front which Sheikh Al-Amoudi admitted
(inadvertently) funding, years after the fact, was called the Islamic Assembly of
North America (IANA). IANA was one of convict Alamoudi's SAAR Foundation groups, where Director Saleh
Hussayen visited his nephew, who ran its online recruitment drives for suicide
bombers.
IANA's later convicted Chairman, Bassem Khafagi, was also
Alamoudi's Co-Director at CAIR, another SAAR entity of which convict Alamoudi
was founder or lead official.
Along with CAIR they included:
American
Muslim Council (AMC), American Muslim Foundation(AMF), Holy Land Foundation(HLF),
International Islamic Relief Organization(IIRO), Islamic Society of North
America(ISNA), Islamic Society of Boston, Hajj Foundation, Success Foundation,
Muslim American Society(MAS), Blessed Relief Foundation, Talibah International and
the globally powerful cult, Muslim Brotherhood.
Alamoudi's co-managers in
every one of these have also been charged with terror-related crimes, along with
several other groups in which he was involved. All the while, his bi-partisan
Presidential esteem remained undisturbed.
Starting with his ties to Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose $25 million bailed
out George W. Bush's Harken Energy firm in the '80s, Alamoudi's
Republican influence increased over the years. In 1998 he funded the launch of the
Islamic Institute, headed by GOP insider/lobbyist Grover Norquist. Islamic Insitute's first
appointed Chairman was bin Mahfouz' representative on George W's Harken Energy Board, Talat Othman.
In
1994 Norquist had co-authored Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America." The book
helped spearhead the Republican Congressional landslide that year, and his influence
soared. Norquist later boasted that George W.
Bush won in 2000 due to the Muslim support he delivered.
Norquist attended more than 100 Bush White House meetings, and was especially
close to political whiz Karl Rove. Norquist was a career cohort of Jack Abramoff, the convicted GOP graft master
sentenced to four years in prison.
Abramoff also worked and played well with
Karl Rove. His own secretary, Susan
Ralston, was installed as Rove's Executive Assistant. Abramoff's clients
included the General Council of Islamic Banks, several of whose members also
identified as terror-finance service providers.
At least three
Alamoudi/Norquist/Abramoff associates were given top government positions by George
W.
* David Safavian - former Norquist partner, appointed Administrator of Federal
Procurement Policy. He was later convicted for lying under oath about past dealings
with Alamoudi and Abramoff.
* Faisal Gill
- former Govt Affairs Director for Alamoudi's AMC, whose #2 official ran the Islamic
Institute for Alamoudi/Norquist. Gill was appointed Senior Information Advisor for
the Department of Homeland Security. He was suspended, temporarily, for omitting the
Alamoudi position from his DHS job application (really).
* Suhail Khan - Another Director of
Alamoudi/Norquist's Islamic Institute. His father, Imam Mahboob Khan, had
hosted al qaeda #2 Ayaman Zawahiri at his Santa Clara mosque. George W appointed him
to the White House Public Liason Office in 2001, and as of 2008, Suhail Khan was Assistant to the US
Transportation Secretary.
Grover's brother, David Norquist, was a
Congressional staffer in 2001. Since then, his government career has skyrocketed. He
became Deputy Undersecretary of Defense in '03. In that post, he allowed Halliburton
to delete documents from the audit of its massive overbilling in Iraq. In
2006, David Norquist was appointed the Department of Homeland Security's Chief
Financial Officer, where he remained as of 2008.
Categories
Sources
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