- Adnan Khashoggi
Adnan Khashoggi (or Kashoggi) ( _ar. عدنان خاشقجي) (born
25 July 1935 inMecca ) is a formerbillionaire Saudi Arabia n arms-dealer and businessman. He is also noted for his engagements withhigh society in both theOccidental andArabic -speaking worlds, and for his involvement in the Iran-Contra, BCCI and numerous other affairs.History
Adnan Khashoggi is the son of
Muhammad Khashoggi , a Turkish-born medical doctor who was King Abdel Aziz Al Saud's personalPhysician . The family name means "spoonmaker" inTurkish . Adnan Khashoggi's sister Samira Khashoggi Fayed was the mother ofDodi Fayed , who died withPrincess Diana .Khashoggi was educated at Victoria College in
Alexandria ,Egypt ,California State University, Chico ,Ohio State University , andStanford University inPalo Alto, California , USA. It is said that Khashoggi quit his studies in order to seek his fortune inbusiness .Khashoggi headed a company called
Triad Holding Company , which among other things built theTriad Centre inSalt Lake City ,Utah , which later went bankrupt. He was famed as an arms dealer, brokering deals between US firms and the Saudi Government, most actively in the 1960s and 1970s. In the documentaryThe Mayfair Set , Saudi authorSaid Aburish states that one of Adnan's first weapons deal was providingDavid Stirling with weapons for a covert mission in Yemen during theAden Emergency in 1963. Among his overseas clients were defense contractorsLockheed Corporation (nowLockheed Martin Corporation ),Raytheon ,Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation andNorthrop Corporation (which have now merged intoNorthrop Grumman ). A shrewd businessman, he covered his financial tracks by establishing front companies inSwitzerland andLiechtenstein to handle his commissions as well as developing contacts with notables such as CIA officersJames H. Critchfield and Kim Roosevelt and US businessmanBebe Rebozo , a close associate of former US PresidentRichard Nixon . He was also involved in diamond mining in theCentral African Empire , working closely with the dictatorBokassa .He was implicated in the
Iran-Contra Affair as a key middleman in the arms-for-hostages exchange along with Iranian arms dealerManucher Ghorbanifar and, in a complex series of events, was found to have borrowed money for these arms purchases from the now-bankrupt financial institution theBank of Credit and Commerce International with Saudi and US backing. In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested inSwitzerland , accused of concealing funds, and held for three months and then extradited to the United States where he was released on bail and subsequently acquitted. In 1990, a United States federal jury inManhattan acquitted Khashoggi andImelda Marcos , widow of the exiled Philippine PresidentFerdinand Marcos , ofracketeering andfraud . [cite web
url = http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/1/25/74621.shtml
title = Marcos Juror Among Stewart Jury Finalists
accessdate = 2007-09-11
date = 2004-01-25] He has also worked for Col. Ghaddafi ofLibya in 1992 as a mediator.Khashoggi, along with
Ramy El-Batrawi , was the principal financier behind GenesisIntermedia, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: GENI), a publicly traded Internet company based in Southern California. After theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks , Khashoggi's U.S. based checking accounts were frozen and Khashoggi was unable to make a margin call with Native Nations Securities, whose CEO and largest shareholder, at the time, wasValerie Red Horse , former office manager ofjunk bond king,Michael Milken . In turn, Native Nations and Red Horse were unable to meet their obligations on the margin loan to MJK Clearing, Inc. [ [http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2007/34-55527.pdf In the Matter of Dean C. Reder] , "Securities and Exchange Commission", March 26, 2007.] [Mudry, Brent. [http://www.rgm.com/articles/sec.html "SEC files first suit in GenesisIntermedia debacle"] , "Canada StockWatch", June 4, 2003.] Trading in the stock of GenesisIntermedia was halted in September 2001. Khashoggi's unwillingness to pay his margin loan to Native Nations Securities, and Native Nations (and Red Horse's) inability to pay its debts to MJK Clearing, began a series of bankruptcies that ended in the largest payout inSecurities Investor Protection Corporation history. [ [http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1001136/000095013701504720/c66026ntnt10-q.txt Form 12B-25, Notification of Late Filing] , "Securities and Exchange Commission", November 14, 2001.] [SIPC. [http://www.sipc.org/media/release10oct.cfm "SIPC: BANKRUPTCY COURT CLEARS SALE OF TROUBLED MINNESOTA BROKERAGE FIRM, 175,000-Customer Firm Failure is Largest Ever Handled by SIPC"] , "SIPC", October 2, 2001.] Native Nations Securities and MJK Clearing both eventually filed for bankruptcy. [ [http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Fex0XbkK1_MJ:www.mjktrustee.com/pdf/trustee20threport.pdf+Native+Nations+Securities&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us SIPC vs. MJK Clearing, Inc.] , "United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Minnesota', September 30, 2006.']American University used to have a prominent building named the Khashoggi Center but after he defaulted on his donation pledge, the school removed his name from the building.Khashoggi continues to live a quiet life in the
Principality of Monaco , even after a British court ordered him to pay a creditor the amount of £7 million. His services as a facilitator have been a recurring feature throughout US administrations since Nixon; most recently, he met withRichard Perle shortly before the American invasion ofIraq , in 2003.Kashoggi has also worked with the Bangladeshi Arms Dealer and the Billionaire
Prince Moosa Shamser to broker deals in Russia. Prince Moosa Shamser currently lives a lavish but low profile life in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. Some reports claim that Prince Moosa is also involved in the Al-Yamama BAE scandal.Personal life
Khashoggi was well known for leading an extravagant and wild lifestyle that was legendary in its time. This was commemorated on rock band Queen's album "The Miracle", on which the second song is titled "Khashoggi's Ship". The song mentions his
super yacht "Nabila" (named after his daughter actressNabila Khashoggi [http://posters.imdb.com/name/nm0451490/bio] ), built byBenetti and appearing in theJames Bond film "Never Say Never Again ". The yacht was later acquired byDonald Trump who renamed it "Trump Princess" forIvana Trump . After Donald Trump's divorce, the yacht was repossessed and then sold by an American Express subsidiary bank to another Saudi Businessman,Al-Waleed bin Talal , a nephew of the king of Saudi Arabia. It is now kept at berth number one in Antibes with an occasional cruise to Cannes, in the south of France under the new name of "Kingdom 5KR ".In addition to the yacht, he also had an opulent DC-8 jet with futuristic custom interior built around 1980. It is featured in the last issue of Nest Magazine.
At his 50th birthday party, held in
Marbella , Spain in 1985, said to have cost millions of dollars, he entertained celebrity guests such asSean Connery ,Shirley Bassey , porn starOlinka Hardiman ,Brooke Shields ,Michael Caine , andGeorge Hamilton IV .Khashoggi has 5 children with ex-wife Soraya, these are Nabila, Muhammed, Khalid, Hussein, and Omar. He has one grandson, Spartan Daggenhurst, whose parents are Nabila Khashoggi and Athanasios Richard Daggenhurst, a Greek-German. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
Divorce from Soraya
In divorcing his wife, Soraya, in 1980, Khashoggi agreed to one of the largest divorce settlements on record; one figure was quoted at £548.4m, [http://www.virgin.net/money/features/mostexpensivedivorces/gal_01_03.html] but reports vary wildly and part of the value of the settlement was said to have been tied to oil prices.
It later emerged that one of his daughters (Petrina Khashoggi) with ex-wife Soraya turned out, on
DNA testing at age 18, to be the daughter of UK Tory Cabinet MinisterJonathan Aitken , soon to be disgraced for his role in accepting a gift from another arms dealer,Mohammed Said Ayas , a Lebanese and a close associate of PrinceMuhammad bin Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In his libel suit against the "Guardian" newspaper, Aitken perjured himself over this gift of accommodation at theParis Ritz and went to jail.Association with Heather Mills
In 2006, Khashoggi was named in the
News of the World as a client ofHeather Mills when she allegedly worked as an escort. As corroboration, "News of the World" provided an affidavit from escort Denise Hewitt, who said she worked with Mills in the service of "Saudi royalty" (not naming Khashoggi specifically), and that Mills boasted of services rendered to afluent clients earning up to £10,000 in a single night.cite web |first=Matt |last=Born |url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-390174/Heather-high-class-hooker-paid-thousands.html |title='Heather was a high-class hooker paid thousands' |publisher=The Daily Mail |date=2006-06-12 |accessdate=2008-07-15] "News of the World" also produced a man namedAbdul Khoury , who stated he was Khashoggi's personal secretary from 1977 to 2005 and had day-to-day knowledge of Khashoggi's business dealings and personal affairs. Khoury affirmed the veracity of reports of Mills's providing erotic services to Khashoggi, and in unequivocal detail. The "Daily Mail" further produced accounts of other friends of Mills's affirming that she had worked as an escort on other occasions.cite web |first=Laura |last=Collins |url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-390135/Heather-just-stood-naked-unashamed-unabashed.html |title=Heather just stood there, naked, unashamed and unabashed |publisher=The Daily Mail |date=2008-04-12 |accessdate=2008-07-15]These accusations have never been tested in a court of law; nor have Khashoggi or Mills (as of early 2007) initiated libel proceedings against Khoury, the News of the World or any media outlets carrying the story (despite the relatively favorable legal climate that exists in the UK for doing so). Through her lawyers, Mills has denied ever having been a
sex worker , says the accusations come from unreliable persons and are timed to cause maximum hurt, and has expressed her intention to sue as soon as her divorce is concluded.cite web |first= |last= |url=http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/06/13/mills-mccartney-tabloids.html |title=Mills McCartney to sue over 'defamatory' allegations |publisher=CBC |date=2006-06-13 |accessdate=2008-07-15]In Popular Culture
* "Khashoggi's Ship", a song on the 1989 Album The Miracle by rock band Queen is about Adnan Khashoggi and a ship (the Nabila, now
Kingdom 5KR ) that he owned at the time.
*The Swedishdance music bandArmy of Lovers has referenced Khashoggi in two songs. In "La Plage De Saint Tropez" with the line: "We meet Khashoggi with a gun", and in "I am" with the lines: "I am, what Bobby is to Pam, Khashoggi to Iran, I am".
*Harold Robbins ´novel "The Pirate" (1974) is supposed to be inspired by the life and lifestyle of Khashoggi
*As well, Khashoggi is the name of one of the antagonist characters in the musical based on Queen's works, "We Will Rock You".See also
*
Hasan Ali Khan
*Ghaith Pharaon
*Ahmed Zaki Yamani
* Ronald Kessler, The Richest Man in the World: The Story of Adnan Kashoggi, New York: Warner Books, 1986.
*Larry J. Kolb , who tells of his experience working closely with Khashoggi in his book "Overworld: The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy" (New York: Riverhead Books, 2004)References
External links
* [http://www.ramyelbatrawi.com Ramy El-Batrawi]
* [http://www.rediff.com/news/dec/02vir.htm Rajiv Gandhi Murder Controversy]
* [http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,1101870119,00.html TIME Magazine Cover: Adnan Khashoggi Jan. 19, 1987]
* [http://www.ciajfk.com/KASH-.html Notes on The Richest Man In The World] byRonald Kessler ISBN 0-446-51339-3
* [http://www.nndb.com/people/321/000024249 Profile at NNDB]
* [http://www.time.com/time/reports/diana/fayeds.html Death of a Princess]
* [http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/servants1.htm Chapter Servants of the Crown] from Saïd K. Aburish'sThe House of Saud ISBN 0-7475-7874-5
* [http://www.slate.com/id/1006609/ Did Adnan Khashoggi Throw the Election to Dubya?]
* [http://www.slate.com/id/1007141/ More "Six Degrees of Adnan Khashoggi"]
* [http://www.rgm.com/articles/Deutsche.html TSX member Deutsche Bank in majorpenny stock scandal] article byBrent Mudry
* [http://www.rgm.com/articles/Deutsche2.html Banking units embroiled in lawsuit] copy of aGlobe and Mail article byKaren Howlett
* [http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/030317fa_fact Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?]The New Yorker article bySeymour Hersh , March 2003.
* [http://www.oraclesyndicate.twoday.net/stories/3588547/ Adnan Khashoggi, Rakesh Saxena and the Spiderweb]
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