Jamal Banoon, Asharq Al-Awsat

JEDDAH, 21 September 2003 — Jamal Muhammad Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Osama Bin Laden, has said that without any evidence he has been accused of involvement in more than 30 terror-related cases, including an assassination attempt on former US President Bill Clinton.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, Khalifa said he had strongly opposed Bin Laden when the latter decided to form Al-Qaeda to fight alongside the Afghan Mujahedeen. “I challenge anybody to prove my link with any (terror) group,” he said.

He accused the American media, especially some television reporters, of trying to link him to Al-Qaeda. “The media has been circulating accusations against me without any proof,” he added. He said about 80 percent of more than 7,000 reports and articles written about him were repetitive. He said he was not a member of the Arab-Afghans who had gone to Afghanistan to fight against Russian forces.

Khalifa, who has 13 children by four wives, worked as director of the Muslim World League’s offices in both Pakistan and the Philippines. Before that, he was a science teacher in a Madinah secondary school.

“I should not be held responsible for the wrongdoings of those who worked under me,” he said. “Some 700 people were employed under me while I was director of the MWL office. It is not fair to hold me responsible for their out-of-work actions,” he pointed out.

Khalifa also said that he had never known any of the 19 responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. He was on a business trip to Thailand at the time. He said Saudi authorities had detained him for 78 days for investigation and later released him after finding no evidence against him. “There were no American investigators. All were Saudis. They asked me about Bin Laden and the attack in Jordan.”

He said he had had a big quarrel with Bin Laden, adding that it forced him to sever relations with him. “I decided to part from him after more than 10 years of friendship. My only connection is that I married his sister,” he explained. “Why do they point at me for every terrorist operation? Osama has 29 in-laws and I am just one of them.”

Khalifa said he had been accused of terror links first in 1994 after the bombings in the United States and Jordan. “I was imprisoned in the US for 120 days. But after investigation, they sent me to Jordan,” he said.

He said many people, including close relatives, had deserted him. “Many have rejected my applications for employment. Even in business, people refused to deal with me,” he said. He was formerly a businessman but for the past two years, he has not traveled abroad and, as a result, has lost $3 million.

“I am now below zero. I have no friends, no job, no business and nobody is helping me,” he said.

Khalifa said Jordanian authorities accused him of funding terrorist attacks after a Jordanian teacher, who was an employee of the MWL office in the Philippines for 70 days, carried out attacks in Jordan. The Jordanian’s name is Abdullah Hashaika. “He was not a friend of mine but he was working in one of the institutes under the MWL office,” he added. Hashaika withdrew his accusation that Khalifa had promised to finance terror.

The Cassation Court in Jordan also rejected all allegations leveled against Khalifa. He said that Sept. 11 had totally changed his life and turned it upside down. “Many people are afraid of dealing with me as they think their names would be recorded on a list of the wanted,” he said. He cooperates fully with Saudi security authorities and emphasizes the need to root out terrorism from the Kingdom.

Intelligence agencies in the US and other countries have accused him of funding terrorist organizations and training terrorist elements as well as members of extremist organizations and also of plotting to down 12 American planes.