Posted on 04/27/2003 7:02:05 PM PDT by ellery
The embattled Labour MP George Galloway acted as the secret 'emissary' for a British-based Islamic dissident who purchased a satellite phone supplied to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The phone was used by Osama bin Laden and his associates to plan the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
Further details of Galloway's relationship with Saad al-Fagih, a fundamentalist opponent of the Saudi regime, emerged this weekend as the Glasgow MP continued to fight for his political life.
A former media adviser to Saudi dissidents in London has told The Observer that Galloway, who last week denied that he had received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, flew to Morocco on 2 February 1996 for a secret meeting to discuss the political situation in Saudi Arabia. Only two others were present: Crown Prince Mohammed (now the King) and a senior Moroccan intelligence official.
The meeting was arranged by the Moroccan embassy in London to explore the possibility of negotiations between the Saudi dissidents in the UK, including al-Fagih and the House of Saud. Galloway has always spoken out against bin Laden and Islamic terrorism and there is no suggestion he supported al-Fagih's relationship with al-Qaeda.
However the disclosure of this secret meeting raises further concerns over his involvement with foreign political interests. Speaking from Portugal, Galloway refused to comment on this trip or his relationship with al-Fagih.
Galloway was unaware that, just months after his trip to Morocco on al-Fagih's behalf, the Saudi purchased an 'Exact-M' satellite phone on behalf of bin Laden's representative in London, Khalid al-Fawaaz.
It was later shipped to bin Laden's second-in-command, Mohammed Atef. Al-Fawaaz was tried in absentia for the African embassy bombings and is now in Belmarsh prison fighting extradition to the US.
At the time of his secret trip to Morocco, Galloway was giving advice to Islamic dissidents in London, including al-Fagih and Mohammed al-Masaari, a Saudi dissident whom the Government was seeking to deport. Galloway was closely associated with the Committee for Defence of Legitimate Rights, a Saudi opposition group run jointly by the two Saudis.
In May of that year, he was reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over allegations that he had not declared his interest when he spoke in a Commons debate on Saudi Arabia. Galloway told the investigation that he did not receive money from CDLR, but was simply reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses by al-Fagih.
The commissioner found that he had not broken the rules, but expressed 'concern that he was acting on behalf of an overseas interest'.
According to John Franklin-Webb, who worked as a media adviser for the CDLR for 18 months, Galloway's discreet overtures to the Saudi royal family were carried out with al-Fagih's blessing. Franklin-Webb claims the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah also approved the meeting.
According to Franklin-Webb's account, at the end of the meeting Galloway was asked to board a private jet to fly to Saudi Arabia for talks. Galloway initially tried but failed to contact al-Fagih and so did not fly. Al-Fagih refused to comment on Galloway but said: 'We have always rejected any overtures made by the Saudi regime.'
Clinton has always pulled stuff with cover through intermediaries.However, if said intermediaries were discussed by the Iraqi government as standing in for Clinton and his representatives, Clinton wouldn't know that or be able to control it.
Where are those two, anyway? I haven't heard anything from either of them since...oh...I don't know....about the time Galloway's papers were found.
However, Mr Galloway's judgment has been questioned because of his close contacts with Arab radicals. His entry in the register of members' interests shows that he has visited Iraq six times in two years, and has been on 12 other trips abroad funded by the Miriam Appeal, named after an Iraqi girl whom Mr Galloway brought to Britain for medical treatment, or by groups opposed to sanctions on Iraq.
John Sweeney, a journalist working for BBC Five Live, unearthed the fact that an Arab from whom Mr Galloway received thousands of pounds in cash for expenses in the 1990s was the same man who was named in an American court as the purchaser of a satellite telephone used by al-Qa'eda in Afghanistan.
Five years ago, Mr Galloway was investigated by the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee over his financial relationship with Saad Al Fagih, a London based dissident Saudi politician. During the inquiry Mr Galloway identified more than £5,000-worth of items on his credit card bill that had been paid by Mr Fagih.
He said that all were out-of-pocket expenses. He also said that he had been given £1,800 to hand over to foreign nationals living in political exile in Britain, but refused to say who they were.
Sir George Downey, then Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, said he had "no grounds for challenging Mr Galloway's version of events".
Evidence presented at the New York trial of four Arabs accused of involvement in the bombings showed that the satellite telephone was shipped to Mr Fagih, whose name appeared on a docket under the heading "payment portion".
Mr Fagih has refused to say why his name appeared, but he denied having any link with the al-Qa'eda network. He said that the document had been known to the authorities in London since it was seized in a police raid three years ago.
When Mr Galloway was asked whether he had second thoughts about accepting money from Mr Fagih, he replied: "I am not responsible for anyone else's views on Osama Bin Laden other than my own, which are as I expressed in the House after September 11, to wit, that I despised him, always had even when the British and American governments were giving him guns and money and that I considered him an obscurantist savage. Strong enough?"
Reverse the order, and I'm in full agreement.
In the stack of articles posted lately, one noted that he is not known for consistant attendance and votes over the years. It will be interesting to see if he budges from his $400,000 (per Weekly Standard) "cottage" in Portugal anytime soon.
Yeah, well.. you know, that hysterical conspiracy theory that is floating around on the Nazi boards (LibertyForum, for example) claiming that 9/11 was the work of the jooos and the FBI and the joooish American administration? It originated in France :).
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