WASHINGTON — When lawyers for the families of the Sept. 11 victims filed a $1-trillion lawsuit against banks, charities and individuals who purportedly funneled money to Al Qaeda, they named as their lead investigator Jean-Charles Brisard, who had written a book on terrorist financing.
Now the French business analyst and financial investigator is himself the subject of a lawsuit -- a libel suit filed by a billionaire Saudi banker, Khalid bin Mahfouz, whom Brisard has described as a key supporter of Osama bin Laden.
The suit against Brisard and coauthor Guillaume Dasquie, filed last Wednesday in Belgium -- and another filed two days earlier against The Mail on Sunday, a British newspaper that has repeated several of Brisard's assertions -- lays out what is described as a series of significant errors in the book. If upheld, the libel action could undermine Brisard's credibility and, by extension, the Sept. 11 lawsuit.
Ronald Motley, a lawyer for the Sept. 11 plaintiffs, said he now plans to amend his complaint, filed in U.S. District Court here, and additionally charge Bin Mahfouz with attempting to intimidate a material witness by pursuing the libel action.
"Brisard is an internationally recognized expert, and Bin Mahfouz is the king of terror financiers and a recognized supporter of Bin Laden," Motley said. But in the libel suit, Bin Mahfouz's lawyers cited what they described as many false statements by Brisard and Dasquie -- such as saying that the Saudi's sister is married to Bin Laden.
The book, "Forbidden Truth," describes a Saudi conspiracy to support Al Qaeda. It calls Bin Mahfouz the "banker of terror" and "one of the principal supporters of Osama bin Laden."
Jean-Pierre van Cutsem, an attorney for Bin Mahfouz, is asking for damages, legal expenses and a halt to further publication of the book, which was published in late 2001 in France and last year in the United States and Britain. The complaint, filed in Belgium because France has a three-month statute of limitations for libel cases, said the book is "based on false and unverified information [that] cast a slur" on Bin Mahfouz, who has vigorously denied supporting terrorist groups or activities.
