One of Osama bin Laden's brothers and a separate Saudi banking family suspected of funneling millions of dollars to bin Laden's terrorist organization own 28 percent of the stock in a Massachusetts biomedical firm engaged in advanced DNA research.
Securities and Exchange records show that Yahia M. A. bin Laden, one of the bin Laden siblings in charge of the family's Middle East-based construction conglomerate, owns 16 percent of Cambridge-based Hybridon, Inc., an 11-year-old company developing new medicine to combat cancer and bolster the human immune system.
A second stockholder in the company is Abdela bin Mahfouz, a member of a wealthy family which controls Saudi Arabia's largest bank, National Commercial Bank. That bank was accused by the Saudi government in 1999 of trying to transfer at least $3 million to front organizations for Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization. As of last May, Abdela bin Mahfouz owned nearly 12 percent of the stock in Hybridon.
Earlier SEC filings show that another member of the family, Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz, held stock in Hybridon. Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz is a director of the National Commercial Bank as well as a board member of Blessed Relief, a Sudan-based charity, which U.S. officials say served as a front for Osama bin Laden.
Robert Anderson, chief operating officer of Hybridon, said Yahia bin Laden and the bin Mahfouz family have been ``loyal stockholders.''
``We don't have any issue with the background of the investors. We don't have any concern,'' Anderson said. ``These families put money in early on . . . they deal at arms length. I imagine they have a number of investments in the U.S.''
``We are a legitimate company which is developing medicine,'' Anderson added. ``We have dedicated scientists doing cancer research, not anything harmful.''
Hybridon, incorporated in 1990, is one of a handful of companies in the U.S. developing ``antisense'' technology, which involves the design of synthetic DNA material to inhibit the body's production of disease-causing protein.
The biggest U.S. company involved in the antisense field, Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is currently working under a $6.6 million research grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to see if this new technology can be used to counteract the devastating effects of biological weapons.
Hybridon has an agreement under which it licenses intellectual property to Isis, but according to Anderson, Hybridon has no involvement in any research related to germ warfare. ``Currently we don't,'' Anderson said. ``I guess if Isis were successful in some way we would consider it.''
As far as Anderson knows, Hybridon researchers do not work with materials useful in the development of biological weapons.
Anderson said he has never met Yahia bin Laden in person or spoken with him by telephone. However, he provided the Herald with a copy of a statement Hybridon received from the head of the bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia a few days after the U.S. named Osama bin Laden as the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
Signed by Abdullah A. A. bin Laden, the statement declared the bin Laden family's ``strong denunciation and condemnation of this tragic incident which has resulted in the loss of lives of so many innocent men, children and women, which run counter to our gracious religion and which is repugnant to all religions and humanity. . . . We express our condolences to the families and relatives of the innocent victims.''
Restating a position first announced by the family in 1994, Abdullah bin Laden also asserted that ``the bin Laden family has no relation at all with (Osama bin Laden's) acts and conducts.''
The message was delivered to Hybridon through the Saudi Arabian consulate in the United States.
Another Hybridon stockholder and member of the company's board of directors is Camille A. Chebeir, whose company, Saudi Economic Development Co., manages bin Mahfouz family money, which reportedly totals some $4 billion.
Chebeir, the former executive vice president of the bin Mahfouz's National Commercial Bank, was appointed to Hybridon's board in 1999.
According to reports in USA Today and by the Associated Press that same year, Saudi government officials audited National Commercial Bank and its founder, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and found that several of the country's wealthiest businessmen had ordered the bank to transfer more than $3 million to New York and London, where it was placed in the accounts of Islamic charities, including Blessed Relief. Khalid bin Mahfouz was reportedly placed under house arrest after the discovery of the transactions.
Anderson said he is unaware of any alleged financial dealings between the bin Mahfouz family and Osama bin Laden's organization.
Of the bin Laden and bin Mahfouz stock ownership, Anderson said: ``They have a vote for their number of shares at the annual meeting. Like any other common stockholder, they're allowed to vote their shares.
``Surely these people have significant investments in other companies,'' he added.
'`There must be many, many others because these people have vast amounts of money. Why single out a little company like ours?''
Yahia bin Laden (also spelled Yehia) is one of three brothers who exert the most control over the Saudi-based Bin Laden Group, according to research by PBS' Frontline, and he is currently negotiating with Lebanese officials for a $50 million contract to help rebuild war-torn central town Beirut.
Which is a perect front for being able to get, without suspiscion, components necessary for biological warfare.
As far as Anderson knows, Hybridon researchers do not work with materials useful in the development of biological weapons
This is a stupid statement.
Of course they do.