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Sunday Times (London)
September 30, 2001, Sunday

Hotel clue points to an Iraqi connection
Tom Walker

A CHANCE encounter in a Baghdad hotel may have provided a clue for investigators trying to establish whether Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, was in contact with Osama Bin Laden in the months before the suicide bomb attacks on American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam three years ago.

Giovanni Di Stefano, a controversial lawyer who was the business partner of the late Serbian warlord Arkan, has described how he met Bin Laden -now the world's most wanted man but then a relatively unknown figure -in the lobby of the five-star Al-Rashid hotel while negotiating a contract to represent Iraqi Airlines in Yugoslavia and Italy.

If true, his account could strengthen the view of Washington hawks that Iraq had a hand in the embassy bombings and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that Saddam's regime should be targeted for retaliation.

However, Di Stefano's claim has divided intelligence sources and academics: some say Bin Laden was plotting strikes against American targets with Saddam, while others insist he would not have been welcome in Iraq.

Di Stefano said that in March 1998 -five months before the embassy bombings - he entered the state-run hotel with Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister, and was sitting in the lobby with a business associate.

Richard Butler, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, had just walked past when they overheard someone sitting nearby say: "That is a man who brings death to this country."

Di Stefano said he looked over and saw a slightly built man sipping Evian water. "I said we also had our victims to cry over in Yugoslavia," Di Stefano recalled. "He walked over, and I remember his piercing eyes and handshake. His skin was gentle and soft, like a woman's hand."

The two men made polite conversation, and the stranger introduced himself as Osama Bin Laden, a name that meant nothing to Di Stefano at the time. "He seemed kind: he talked about a family feast for his children and asked me about law," Di Stefano said. "He seemed a gentle man, although his eye movements were a little strange."

It was only on his return to Belgrade in late March that Di Stefano realised whose hand he had fleetingly grasped. "Arkan told me I should have killed him," he said.

Laurie Mylroie, the author of Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America, which highlights a series of links with Bin Laden, said the lawyer's story was plausible. "Bin Laden's not capable of doing this stuff without foreign intelligence, and that comes from Iraq. He can't do it wasting away in the Hindu Kush," she said. "It all fits in. It's circumstantial, but there are strong grounds to believe the plot was already under way."

Although hawks in the Bush administration suspect that Iraq was involved in the jet attacks, Colin Powell, the secretary of state, has resisted calls for air strikes against Baghdad.

"The Americans have only ever hinted at Iraq giving material support for Bin Laden, but they have never produced the evidence," said Professor Paul Wilkinson, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University.

"It's quite possible Bin Laden was in Iraq. There are differences between them but that doesn't mean you can exclude contact when they both hate America so much."

Peter Bergen, whose biography of Bin Laden is to be published shortly, said Di Stefano's supposed sighting failed "every common sense test". He believes ideological conflicts between Bin Laden and Saddam would prevent them conspiring together.

The relationship between Butler, who arrived in Baghdad on March 22 1998, and the Iraqi regime deteriorated.

The Iraqis repeatedly denounced America, although they have always denied any links to Bin Laden.

On August 4 Butler cut short a visit to Baghdad, and three days later explosions at the American embassies in the Kenyan and Tanzanian cities claimed 224 lives. Bin Laden has been indicted by Washington for the attacks.

Di Stefano has maintained his contacts with Saddam's regime, but says has no idea why Bin Laden should have been in the Al-Rashid in 1998. "I don't know and I won't speculate," he said.