Khalid Al-Mihdhar, Nawaf Al-Hazmi

WASHINGTON, November 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Adel Al-Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, strongly denied any connection between the royal family and two suspected September 11 hijackers, as the FBI launched a probe into whether Saudi royal charitable funds were funneled to the hijackers.

The investigation is focused on alleged evidence that Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi - who participated in the hijacking American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon - may have received thousands of dollars in Saudi money, including from a member of the Saudi royal family, according to administration and congressional sources.

“The FBI continues to pursue all investigative leads in its counterterrorism efforts in a thorough and confidential manner,” the bureau said in a statement, which did not disclose any details.

But the sources familiar with the probe claimed there was evidence some of the money had come indirectly from Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, daughter of the late Saudi King Faisal, who is married to the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

U.S. Newsweek magazine, which broke the story, claimed that payments of around 3,500 dollars a month went from the princess’s account at Washington’s Riggs Bank to the family of Saudi national Omar Al-Bayoumi, who studied in California and befriended Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi.

“There is no evidence to that effect whatsoever,” Al-Jubeir told CNN from Riyadh, denying that direct payments had ever been made by the princess to either Al-Bayoumi or Bassnan.

But Al-Jubeir admitted that an internal Saudi investigation had found that Princess Haifa had been regularly sending charitable contributions to a U.S.-based Saudi woman named Magda Ibrahim Ahmed.

Slightly more than half of that money had been forwarded unbeknownst to her to either Osama Bassnan or Janet Bassnan or Manal Al-Bayoumi, assumed to be Omar Al-Bayoumi’s wife, Al-Jubeir said.

“They don’t know who this lady is and how she was able to get on Princess Haifa's recipient list,” said al-Jubeir.

After Al-Bayoumi left the country in mid-2001, payments began flowing to Osama Bassnan, another friend of both Al-Bayoumi and the future hijackers, according to Newsweek’s report.

Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi arrived in California in January 2000, shortly after a supposed Malaysia summit of top Al-Qaeda leaders where intelligence officials believe plans for the September 11 attacks had been fleshed out.

According to FBI officials, they both took flying lessons in the city San Diego, after which Al-Mihdhar left for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

He returned to the United States roughly two months before the deadly strikes that together left about 3,000 people dead.

FBI Director Robert Mueller believes Al-Mihdhar’s role in the plot “may well have been that of the coordinator and organizer of the movements of the non-pilot hijackers.”

A total of 19 hijackers took part in the attacks, 15 of them Saudi nationals. Al-Bayoumi and Bassnan, who are said to have maintained close contact with both future hijackers, are currently facing U.S. visa fraud charges, according to FBI officials.

Al-Bayoumi, who left the United States before September 11, was briefly detained in Britain but was let go because visa fraud is not an extraditable offense, the officials said. Bassnan is facing deportation from the United States, according to Al-Jubeir.

The Saudi money trail is being detailed in a report by a congressional committee probing the events of September 11, a declassified version of which is expected to be released in January.

“The committee has been sharing certain documents and certain materials with the administration, as it is finalizing the report, to keep the process of declassification moving,” a congressional source told AFP.

“That is apparently where the information is being leaked from.”

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