Taif Info Center has been away for a few weeks, but in that time much has happened. Of particular note were events in America, where, in that country’s Congress, The House Committee on Financial Services held a meeting in its Sub-Committee’s review of “current and evolving trends in terrorist financing”.
What is the link to our dispute? Well, at that hearing on the 28th September Eric Lewis, legal counsel for the Al-Gosaibis, gave testimony. He used that opportunity to raise the accusations that his side have made against Maan Al-Sanea, whose lawyers were not giving evidence in front of the Committee.
As Mr Lewis said, “The fraud and money laundering scheme that I will discuss involves the transfer of approximately $1 trillion through the United States financial system, all directed by a Saudi national named Maan Al Sanea”.
Mr Lewis continued: “The two Bahraini banks—Awal Bank and The International Banking Corporation—had no legitimate customers; they were created and used by Al Sanea to borrow money and then funnel it through the U.S. financial system to dummy customers and then to his own companies.”
Mr Lewis put the accusations in the context of the hearing by leveling criticisms at Bank of America, which, he argued, wholly failed to conduct due diligence on the sums allegedly transferred between it and Mr Al-Sanea.
Raising AHAB’s allegations against Maan Al-Sanea in such a forum (in which such a subject is being discussed) was obviously a serious matter. In a National story about the hearing that was published a day before the hearing Saad’s spokespeople declined to comment.
Taif Info Center does express surprise that Mr Al-Sanea was not given an opportunity to respond to Mr Lewis’s accusations, especially given his denial of all of AHAB’s allegations. That was something that the Chairman of the Committee, Congressman Dennis Moore recognized in his opening statement:
“There are some allegations in the written testimony where parties not present are named and accused. We’re not a court of law and we cannot engage in fact finding in this setting. We do not have all the facts nor the response of those . . . if we don’t have the response from those named. Opinions expressed and allegations made must be viewed within that context, and we’ll leave the record of the hearing open to afford any party named an opportunity to present their own response and their side of the story.”
It will be interesting to see if Maan Al-Sanea takes up this invitation…
Read a full transcript of Eric Lewis’s oral testimony here.
View a webcast of the hearing, including Congressman Moore’s opening comments here.
Read The National report about the hearing here.
