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Soliman Biheiri
Last Updated: August 20, 2008

Throughout the ‘90s, Egyptian banker Biheiri operated as a US clearing house for terrorists and the billionaires bankrolling them. In the mid ‘90s, he also helped later Specially Designated Global Terrorists start a Boston software company named Ptech. Unbelievably if presented as fiction, Ptech then became manager of the US Government’s most critical IT security systems, right through September 11, 2001.

The FBI finally detained Biheiri in June 2003, telling a federal court it intended to call him as a material witness in a terrorism trial. But it never did. Prosecutors charged that Bihieri was US banker for the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas emerged. Since then, he has been twice convicted of minor offenses and twice sentenced to one-year jail terms, reportedly to buy time for prosecutors to develop other charges they could trade for his information about global terror financing.

Biheiri came to the United States in the 1980s, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1990. He opened his firm, named BMI, with many $millions from other Arab bankers, charities and intermediaries later charged with terrorism or its funding.

Among BMI’s principal investors was Abdurahman Al-Amoudi, a regular guest of President George W, and co-founder with White House favorite Grover Norquist of the Islamic Institute. Alamoudi’s exalted political status ended with his 2003 indictment and subsequent 23 year sentence for terror funding.

Other investors included two members of the Bin Laden family, Saleh Kamel and Khalid bin Mahfouz, (George W oil company’s bailout investor). Kamel and Mahfouz are both on the “Golden Chain” list of Al Qaeda’s top 20 funders, seized during a 2002 Bosnian anti-terror raid

In 1991, the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), since listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) group, sent Hamas operative Suliman Al-Ali to the United States with $10 million. Over the next few years, IIRO’s man in America transferred at least $3.8 million to Biheiri’s BMI.

In August 1998 Al-Ali suddenly returned to Saudi Arabia, the same month Al Qaeda simultaneously set off two bombs at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people. Where the IIRO money at BMI went remains unknown.

Along with other BMI contributors, Al-Ali had set up a business address at 555 Grove Street in Herndon, Virginia. Five months after 9/11, Federal agents finally raided that address and another across the street, which prosecutors then identified as the epicenter more than a dozen business and charity fronts (part of the SAAR Foundation) financing global terrorists.

Biheiri also handled money for Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, and Hamas’ US recruit trainer Mohammed Salah, both SDGTs. Much of that money and $ millions more came from Arabian banker Yassin Al Qadi (also SDGT), with whom Biheiri had a direct, ongoing financial relationship.

Al Qadi was the main investor in the Ptech company, started in 1994, then somehow made manager of the US’s top secret computer systems.The company actually created the FAA’s new Airspace System in 2001, which was in operation on September 11.

Bihieri invested in Ptech, and Al Qadi invested in Bihieri’s BMI. Both companies included a man named Hussein Ibrahim as corporate officer and board director. Both also funneled money through the terror-linked SAAR Foundation’s charity groups.

The FBI had been watching Biheiri as early as 1999. He was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury regarding charities and terrorist funding in February of that year; a few months later, one of Biheiri’s accountants called a Muslim FBI agent – Gamel Abdel-Hafiz – to say he believed company money had paid for the 1998 embassy bombings.

Later that year, Biheiri learned of the contact and asked that the accountant to reach out to the agent to arrange an interview, but it never took place. FBI Agent Abdel-Hafiz refused to wear a wire to the interview, declaring it was against Muslim principles, and the probe stalled. No action was taken against Agent Abdel-Hafiz and he was promoted in 2001. A year later he was credited with obtaining a confession from a terror suspect, but within months was dismissed. The FBI stated he had omitted relevant information on his admissions application, but Hafiz claimed it was pressure from his superiors in the aborted Biheiri probe.

In June 2003, the Justice Department detained Biheiri as a material witness, but when the government failed to show that a grand jury was waiting to hear Biheiri’s testimony, a judge threatened to release him. In August 2003, he was charged with lying on his 1990 application for citizenship. He was convicted of one count of illegally procuring citizenship.

At his sentencing, federal prosecutors asked the judge to put Biheiri in prison for 10 years, saying they believed his firm was a Hamas front for international terror financing. The judge rejected the suggestion and sentenced Biheiri to one year in jail.

As his release loomed, the FBI filed new criminal charges against him, this time for illegally using his passport and lying to agents who questioned him about his relationship with another SDGT. He was convicted of a single count of fraud in October 2004. In a replay of the previous year’s sentencing, federal prosecutors charged that Biheiri was part of a larger terror network and asked for a long sentence.The judge, however, sentenced Biheiri to fourteen months, which he began serving in 2005.

Categories

Homeland Security | 9/11 | Terror Funding | Information Technology | International Finance

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