Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi financier and arms dealer who once had strong ties to Utah, was extradited to the United States Wednesday to face charges he helped hide assets Ferdinand Marcos and his wife allegedly plundered from the Philippines.
Under the extradition agreement, the United States will drop racketeering and conspiracy charges against Khashoggi.Khashoggi, escorted by two police officers, flew first-class on a Swissair plane for New York three months after he was arrested in a Bern hotel on a U.S. warrant, said Justice Ministry spokesman Joerg Kistler.
Khashoggi, the Marcoses, five other people and the California Overseas Bank in Los Angeles were indicted in October by a U.S. District Court in New York. The indictment accuses the ousted president and his wife, Imelda, of stealing more than $100 million from the Philippine treasury to buy real estate and art in New York.
The U.S. government says Khashoggi posed as the owner of some of the assets as a cover, according to prosecutors.
Khashoggi is said to have been the main financier and middleman of the Iran-Contra affair, in which proceeds of secret U.S. arms sales to Iran were channeled to rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
Khashoggi, once among the world's wealthiest men, also has been named in several kickback scandals. But his arrest April 18 marked the first time that he has wound up behind bars.
Khashoggi's connections in Utah date back to the mid-1970s when groundbreaking ceremonies were held on a 720-acre site for a new business and industrial park that would become the Salt Lake International Center.
Khashoggi became sole owner of the property before construction even started when joint venture partners Jelco and Summa Corp. and others dropped out of the project.
In June 1977 the International Center was dedicated, but Khashoggi was not pres-ent for the ceremonies.
At that time he was staying out of the United States to avoid a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena on charges of accepting bribes from American weapons manufacturers. Instead, Khashoggi greeted dinner guests via a film made at his headquarters, at that time in London.
In 1982 the Triad Center complex - Khashoggi's most ambitious undertaking ever - was launched on west South Temple in Salt Lake's Gateway District.
The first phase of the project, initially planned as a $500 million investment that quickly soared to $600 million, progressed as scheduled, including restoration of the historic Devereaux House.
In June 1982, groundbreaking ceremonies were held for the Triad Center, a purported $410 million project that was to include high-rise office towers, condominiums and a major hotel. Most of the project has never materialized.
About 1 1/2 years later, Triad announced in October 1983 a major reorganization of its corporate structure, making Salt Lake City the headquarters for all of its U.S. operations. Five operation divisions were formed to coordinate and manageKhashoggi's then growing operations in Utah, California and Texas.
In June 1984, Khashoggi made his first public appearance in Salt Lake City since the 1974 groundbreaking of the International Center. At that time he indicated that there may be even more Triad projects in Utah beyond the Triad International centers.
The same month it was announced that a 600-room luxury hotel would be built at the Triad Center, but the project fizzled.
In April 1985, Triad announced it had purchased the Sheraton Hotel on West Temple and that $1 million had been budgeted for special features to the hotel's public areas, but the work was never accomplished.
In June 1985, Adnan Khashoggi and his brother, Essam, broke ground at the Triad Center for Phase 2 - a 35-story office building. But that project also never materialized.
Reports of "cash flow" problems, combined with local and economic downturns and an overbuilt downtown office market, thwarted financing for the building.
By October 1986, all of Triad's local executives, including Emanuel A. "Manny" Floor, were out of the picture. Floor later told the Deseret News that he attended a meeting in the Cayman Islands with Khashoggi in which financing for the Iran-Contra arms deal was discussed. Khashoggi was named by government investigators as a major player in the transactions, but he avoided questioning by a congressional committee that investigated the scandal.
Sources vary on the actual amount that Khashoggi owes Utah creditors. Last October, on orders of the federal district court in Utah, Adnan and Essam Khashoggi made a $32 million payment to Triad creditors. Khashoggi was sued by numerous creditors for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Scores of people involved in the Triad Center and related projects have lost their jobs; numerous financial institutions have been involved with Khashoggi.