Posted on 09/25/2001 3:10:35 AM PDT by Betty Jo
Tuesday,September 25,2001
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 .....
Antisense!
DNA!
Biological warfare weapons?
Somehow, Bin Laden is using his firm, Hybridon, to further his biological warfare program!
Dual use!
Transfer technology!
Lets see how quickly the firm is frozen!
It has leased one of its "Antisense" goodies to Isis.
Isis has a DOD contract to develop "Antidotes to biological weapons"!
So how is Bin Laden who just murdered over 7,000 Americans using federal tax $$$$$ to make "Antidotes" to the weapons we think he is going to dust us with using crop dusters?
Homeland defense?
There are treasonous traitors in the Homeland!
BTTT
But, I wont give up!
Homeland defense?
When the devil is in Boston?
Think Teddy knows that Bin Laden is brewing up death , right next door to him?
Soo close to Kennebunkport!
7,000 Americans were murdered by incompetence, corruptness and greed!
And please, throw in treason for good measure!
What the FBI is probably trying to determine is what Bin Laden's brothers' ties are to Bin Laden, to see if they have done anything criminal. In this country it is not a crime to have a relative who is a criminal. Of course, it is a crime to aid a criminal, which the FBI is probably trying to determine. And it's entirely possible (though perhaps doubtful under Clinton's administration) that Bin Laden's brothers have already been picked over with a fine tooth comb and been found to be doing nothing wrong.
Did you read the whole article?(I dont know how to post.)
Mahfouz is a funder to Bin Laden!
Bush just ordered that all such $$$$ to Bin Laden be stopped!
It is my allegation that the bios that Congress is scared **itless over came out of that business, either physically or intellectually or spore, or microbe, or spliced gene,yada, yada!
To summarize, witches brews to kill us are being made and thought up at Hybridon in Cambridge, Massachusetts!
Near where the Boston Tea Party started it all!
I demand in the name of "Homeland Defense"that the door be padlocked,after FBI Agents have carried out the contents,DNA, RNA, spliced gene,toxins et al!
An incoherent!
Loony!
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.
Federal agents poised to search Cambridge site
by Tom Farmer and Maggie Mulvihill
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
Federal agents are poised to execute a search warrant in Cambridge today in connection with the Sept. 11 terror attacks on America, according to a law enforcement source.
The source said the FBI was preparing a search warrant yesterday for a home in Cambridge that may have some connection to the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
The search warrant is expected to be executed today, the source said.
State public safety officials briefed acting Gov. Jane Swift yesterday on the latest local developments, including the Cambridge warrant, the source said.
Other sources confirmed that officials are also considering diverting a massive liquified natural gas tanker expected to arrive in Everett in several days, fearing it will be targeted for attack.
``There's concern that it is going to be in (Boston) harbor in the next few days and whether to allow it to continue here,'' said one informed source. ``It's not a question of turning it around, it would have to be diverted somewhere.''
The tanker is scheduled to dock at the Distrigas facility.
The largest tanker that docks at the facility can carry 33 million gallons of LNG, according to Everett fire officials.
One longtime firefighter downplayed the danger, however, saying the tankers are double-hulled and designed to sustain damage without exploding.
``The ignition factor (for LNG) is much lower than some other things out there that we have to deal with,'' said the firefighter.
U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Malden) noted the Everett risk during a speech yesterday to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
In addition to protecting such local sites as the gas facility in Everett and the power-grid control center in Holyoke, he said, ``We have to ensure that the 103 nuclear power plants in our country are secure.''
Investigators searching for terrorists involved in the attack two weeks ago are probing more than 3,000 leads in Massachusetts alone, one source said.
WBZ-TV reported yesterday that American Airlines Flight 156 from Boston to London may also have been targeted for hijacking Sept 11.
The station said three Arab men showed up at 8:30 a.m. for the 9 a.m. flight and became enraged when they were told they would not be able to sit together. The station said an airline supervisor intervened and the men left without boarding.
The flight never took off because planes were grounded across the nation soon after the first of two hijacked jets out of Boston slammed into the World Trade Center in New York. A source at Logan International Airport said American Airlines officials denied the incident.
A spokeswoman for the Boston office of the FBI had no comment on the television report.
Federal authorities have charged the first person with aiding the terrorist hijackers, according to court documents released yesterday.
Herbert Villalobos was charged in federal court in Virginia with aiding one suspected hijacker to fraudulently obtain a Virginia identification card a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Villalobos was allegedly paid $80 for falsely certifying that Abdul Aziz al-Omari, one of the suspected hijackers of Flight 11 out of Boston, lived at a residence in Arlington, Va.
He reportedly did not know he was helping with a terrorist plot.
Eric Convey and Herald wire services contributed to this report.
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