Silencing the critics of Islamic Terror Funding…

Cambridge University Press puckering up for the butt of a certain Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz. Result one book destroyed and a great university humbled and silenced. Can we expect Cambridge to be an honest broker in any future debates regarding Islam and its proponents?

In 2006 Cambridge University Press published Alms for Jihad written by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins which made certain defamatory allegations about Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and his family in connection with the funding of terrorism.

Whilst the allegations were originally published in good faith, Cambridge University Press now recognises that the information upon which they were based was wrong. Cambridge University Press accepts that there is no truth whatsoever in these serious allegations.

Cambridge University Press accepts that the entire Bin Mahfouz family categorically and unreservedly condemns terrorism in all its manifestations, and that at no time has any member of the family contributed to any terrorist organisation, nor has the family ever had reason to believe that funds it has given over the years to a wide variety of charities, including the Muwafaq Foundation, have been used other than for the charitable purposes intended.

Two more powerful authors of another serious indictment of Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz pucker up for their turn at kissing the butt of Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz.

We, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasqui, are the authors of Forbidden Truth, a book circulated widely since it was first published in the autumn of 2001. I, Jean Charles-Brisard, am also the author of a Report entitled Terrorism Financing published in December 2002.

The Book and the Report contain very serious and highly defamatory allegations about Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Mahfouz, alleging support for terrorism through their businesses, families and charities, and directly. As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your families, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false.

So just who is Jean-Charles Brisard? In his own words before THE COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING AND URBAN AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE!

Chairman Shelby, Senator Sarbanes and distinguished members of this Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today about the global war on terrorism financing.

I started investigating terrorism financing networks in 1997 for the French government, since then, I have provided expertise to various governments and to the United Nations. Since June 2002, I have been leading an international investigation for the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism in the course of an action brought by 5,600 family members before the US District Court of Washington, D.C. against several entities, banks, companies, charities and individuals that provided financial or logistical support to the Al-Qaida network.

In that respect, our investigation is today active in various regions of the world and has been able to recover a considerable amount of information on Al-Qaida support networks through procedures of judicial or political cooperation established with more than 30 countries.

To date, our effort is probably a unique example of non-State cooperation and investigation on terrorism.
This process, through cooperation and interviews with hundreds of law enforcement officials, provides us with an independent, although global, perspective on assessing inter-governmental efforts on terrorism financing.

Above all, the current process has been able to uncover major documents and items related to the funding of the Al-Qaida organization, and I would like to share some of our findings with you today. These findings help understand both the global context of terrorism funding and the ways and means used by Al-Qaida on a regular basis to raise and move funds for operational purposes.

And exactly what was being said about this Sheikh:

The second purpose of money at the super-structure level has been to pay for protection and asylum. Since 1991, al-Qaida and Usama Bin Laden had to resettle in various countries after the opposition movement was banned from Saudi Arabia. It was the case in Sudan and later in Afghanistan.

According to various intelligence estimates, less than 10% of the annual income of the organization went to operational planning and execution, while 90% was used for the network infrastructure, mainly facilities, organization, communication and protection.

This money primarily originates from wealthy donors in the Middle-East. In the course of our investigation for the 9/11 families, and as part of a judicial cooperation process with the state of Bosnia Herzegovina, we uncovered major evidence proving this factor.

The Golden Chain list of wealthy Saudi sponsors is an internal Al-Qaida document seized by the Bosnian police during searches in the offices of Benevolence International Foundation in Sarajevo in March 2002. Our team was granted access to this document, among others, following an order of the Supreme Court of Bosnia Herzegovina ordering the US government to release this material.

The Golden Chain lists the top 20 Saudi financial sponsors of Al-Qaida. It includes 6 bankers and 12 businessmen, among which there are 2 former ministers.

According to our estimates, their cumulative corporate net worth totals more than $85 billion dollars, or 42% of the Saudi annual GNP and equivalent to the annual GNP of Venezuela.

They include former leading Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz, businessman Saleh Abdullah Kamel, the Bin Laden family, and several bankers representing the three largest Saudi banks (National Commercial Bank, Riyadh Bank and Al Rajhi Bank).

Most of them are or were involved, apart from their legitimate businesses, in charity organizations as founders or board members.

Oops I guess that would tend to concentrate the mind. Course Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz claims all of that is a bunch of nonsense. Libel laws being what they are in Europe the burden of proof lies with those making the accusations. If you cannot prove that what you are saying is true then you are guilty of libel. Which on the face of it might seem to be a good idea…hell it is a good idea. The weakness comes when you are trying to take down a network where the ties that bind are hidden and easily refuted. Such are the sorts of ties that bind terrorists and those that finance them. It can be no other way.

To hold authors like those mentioned above to the same standard of evidence as a person writing trite gossip regarding some corrupt politician or philandering business leader is suicidal. Libel laws protecting those sorts of individuals make some sense. We have to stand up to them but to do that we must be able to publish material not likely to be accompanied by evidence permissible in a court of law.

Some are fighting. From Michelle Malkin’s terrific blog:

Alyssa Lappen at Frontpage magazine spotlights intrepid Rachel Ehrenfeld?s battle against speech-squelching Saudi billionaire Khalid Bin Mahfouz.

See also Mark Steyn?s latest column on the disappearance of Alms for Jihad.

Michael Rubin notes silence from the Middle East Studies Association?s Committee on Academic Freedom.

Stanley Kurtz pushes for mainstream media coverage of libel tourism and lays out the stakes: