Kuwait deposited $60 million in the scandal-tainted Bank of Credit and Commerce International for a terrorist group that pressured Arab oil producers to aid the Palestinians, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The Guardian, quoting what it said was a confidential French secret service document, reported that the Kuwaiti Embassy in London paid the funds into the London BCCI account of terrorist leader Abu Nidal in 1987.The report was among the latest accusations of covert or shadowy dealings linked to BCCI, which closed operations in dozens of countries on July 5 after the Bank of England received what it described as evidence of a huge fraud.
In Washington, the Justice Department says a task force of federal prosecutors in Washington, Atlanta, Miami and Tampa, Fla., is investigating the Luxembourg-based bank.
The closings have generated headlines over allegations that the private financial institution, owned by a small group of wealthy Arab investors, has been a bank for money launderers, drug lords, terrorists and other criminals.
The Guardian newspaper report, based on information provided by British intelligence, says that "although there was no formal proof, it seemed certain that (Kuwait and other) gulf states made forced contributions to be spared terrorist attacks."
It quoted the French secret service report, dated February 1988, as saying: "Certain countries like Kuwait, which were for some time targets of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, now seem to enjoy relative peace."
The Guardian story said the French report alleges that Abu Nidal's BCCI account "was in the name of Samir Najmeddin, described as the head of the Fatah Revolutionary Council's commercial network."
The article said Najmeddin is an Iraqi businessman who supplied arms to Saddam Hussein and to Argentina during the Falklands War.