BARCELONA, Spain — BARCELONA, Spain -- Despite a crackdown on terrorism financing after the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia still must dismantle a system that has permitted hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Islamic extremists through businesses and charities, according to a report submitted to the U.N.
Prominent Saudi donors, companies and charities whose funds have been traced to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network by investigators around the world are still doing business, the French investigator who wrote the report said in an interview Monday. The problem stems in part from a blurring of religion and finance in Saudi society that impedes reform, according to the report.
"Al Qaeda was able to receive between $300 [million] and $500 million over the last 10 years from wealthy businessmen and bankers, whose fortunes represent about 20% of the Saudi GNP, through a web of charities and companies acting as fronts," said Jean-Charles Brisard, the investigator. "Most of this financial backbone is still at large and able to support fundamentalist institutions."
The 34-page report was submitted by Brisard last week at the request of the Colombian ambassador to the United Nations, the current president of the Security Council.
Brisard spent years analyzing Al Qaeda's finances for a French intelligence service. He works now as a private investigator for relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks who have filed a lawsuit against Saudi political and economic leaders alleging they sponsored Al Qaeda terrorism.
A spokesman for the Saudi mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the allegations Monday.
"The report speaks for itself," the official said. "We do not comment on such reports."
Saying they have been unfairly criticized in the aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Saudi authorities have taken steps to regulate hundreds of millions of dollars in religious donations that leave the kingdom each year. In November, authorities said they would intensify audits of Islamic charities and create new regulations and special units to fight money laundering.
But the report says such measures are insufficient because the financing of terror, in which legitimate funds are diverted to criminal purposes, differs from money laundering, which recycles criminal profits into legal enterprises.
