WASHINGTON -- Business executives in Saudi Arabia continue to transfer tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to Osama bin Laden, who is accused of last year's U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, USA Today reported Friday.
The paper quoted senior U.S. intelligence officials as saying the money transfers began more than five years ago and had been used to finance several attacks by bin Laden, including an attempted assassination in 1995 of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia.The United States on Thursday said it would continue to meet Afghanistan's Taleban rulers to discuss demands for the expulsion of Saudi-born bin Laden, but officials cautioned that they expected no dramatic moves soon.
The United States accuses bin Laden, who lives in hiding in Afghanistan, of being behind explosions at U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in August 1998 that killed 224 people. Washington also believes bin Laden is implicated in a number of other planned attacks.
Bin Laden has denied the charges.
USA Today said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was expected to raise the issue with Saudi defense minister Prince Sultan during his visit to Washington next week.
It cited a Saudi government audit acquired by U.S. intelligence which showed that five of Saudi Arabia's top business executives ordered the National Commercial Bank, the kingdom's largest, to transfer personal funds, along with $3 million diverted from a Saudi pension fund, to New York and London banks.
The money was deposited into the accounts of Islamic charities that serve as fronts for bin Laden, the report said.
Intelligence sources said the businessmen, who are worth more than $5 billion, were paying bin Laden "protection money" to stave off attacks on their businesses in Saudi Arabia, officials said.
Bin Laden, whose family runs the largest Saudi construction firm, has called for the overthrow of the Saudi government.
USA Today said the money transfers were discovered in April after the royal family ordered an audit of NCB and its founder and former chairman, Khalid bin Mahfouz.
Mahfouz is now under "house arrest" at a military hospital in the Saudi city of Taif, intelligence officials said.
His successor, Mohammad Hussein Al-Amoudi, also heads the Capitol Trust Bank in New York and London, which U.S. and British officials are investigating for allegedly transferring money to bin Laden, USA Today reported.
Amoudi's Washington lawyer, Vernon Jordan, could not be reached for comment. Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan declined to comment on the report, USA Today said.