FEBRUARY 1996 : (UK LABOUR MP GALLOWAY FLIES TO MOROCCO ON BEHALF OF MIRA’S SAAD AL-FAGIH TO MEET CROWN PRINCE OF MOROCCO) In February 1996, UK Labour MP George Galloway flew to Morocco for a secret meeting with the then Crown Prince of Morocco to explore a deal between the Islamic Saudi dissidents [such as British-based Saudi dissident Saad al-Fagih, an Islamic fundamentalist who purchased a satellite phone used by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan] and the Saudi royal family. - “MP may be tried as traitor (Galloway),” by Antony Barnett and Martin Bright, The Observer (U.K.) , 04/27/03
According to trial documents, the telephone was bought in 1996 with the help of Dr Saad al Fagih, 45, a bearded surgeon who heads the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. This fundamentalist Muslim group is dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government but is not part of Al-Qaeda. Al Fagih, who has been regularly used by the BBC as an expert on Bin Laden, has in the past explained that Muslim scholars said the killing of civilians, including children, was allowed by the Koran as “collateral damage” in the holy war. It was al Fagih’s credit card which was used to help to buy the £10,500 Compact-M satellite phone in the United States and it was shipped to his home in north London, according to American court documents. His credit card was also used to buy more than 3,000 minutes of pre-paid airtime. Last week al Fagih, who has not been arrested or charged in connection with any of these actions, said: “I am willing to speak to the authorities if they ask me about this or any other issue, but not to the press.”
For two years Bin Laden and his military commander, Muhammad Atef, used the phone to direct Al-Qaeda’s worldwide operations. More than 200 calls were made to the London home and mobile phone of al Fawwaz. Calls were also made to two public phone boxes in December 1996 and May 1997. One was on a street corner outside Willesden library in north London and another was close by, only a few minutes’ walk from al Fawwaz’s home.
Other calls were made to the offices of companies for which al Fawwaz worked. Al Fawwaz, who lived in Kenya from 1993-94 before moving to London, was head of a group called the Advice and Reformation Committee, based in Queen’s Park, northwest London, which has been described by the FBI as a front organisation for Bin Laden.
-------- "Bin Laden called UK 260 times," by Nick Fielding and Dipesh Gadhery, The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 03/24/2002 | Posted on 03/23/2002 3:55:50 PM PST by Pokey78