JEDDAH, 4 May — Saudi businessman Muhammad Jamal Khalifa has denied any link with Ramzi Yusuf and others accused of bombing the World Trade Center in 1995, as alleged in a New York Times report.
In an exclusive interview appearing in today’s Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, Khalifa said he never knew Ramzi Yusuf or met him but he admitted to having known Enaam Arnaout, Wali Khan and Muhammad Bayazid whose names also appeared in the Times report.
Khalifa who is Osama Bin Laden’s brother-in-law explains his relationship with Bin Laden and how their relationship developed over the years.
This is his first interview since 1995 when his case was almost closed in the United States after he was charged with entering the country on a forged visa and also accused of involvement in plots to bomb churches and kill the pope in the Philippines.
In the following interview Khalifa refutes the Times report in which the paper spoke of new information made public by the Justice Department linking Khalifa to several people convicted in the bombing of the World Trade Center and in unsuccessful plots to bring down airliners and assassinate the pope.
The text of the interview follows:
Q. Do you expect the FBI to come after you again?
A. Since 1993 they have been trying to link me with all terrorist activities because they arrested me in the US. The arrest was illegal and they never succeeded in proving any accusation.
Q. Do you believe this is the main reason?
A. Let me finish. The Americans are trying to get out of the dilemma they are facing since 1993.
Q. Going back a little, your case began with an accusation of entering the country with a forged visa and then there was the attempt to kill the Pope in the Philippines and later the plot to carry our bombing operations in Jordan?
A. This is true. When I was arrested in the US, I was charged with giving false information while applying for the visa; why I wrote I have two addresses, one in Jeddah and in the Philippines while I was director of the Muslim World League (MWL) office. They did not succeed in proving this charge and did not discuss it in court.
Q. But you were accused then of being behind terrorist operations, specifically in the Philippines?
A. This is true. I was arrested in December 1994 and in January 1995 Ramzi Yusuf and his companions were arrested for trying to assassinate the Pope, bomb a number of churches and the World Trade Center and blow up some aircraft over the Pacific. What happened was that I was linked to these people without any proof.
Q. How was that?
A. The Philippines then was going through very critical times of instability and the subsequent political and security chaos. The Abu Sayyaf group was active in the South with other groups. I think what happened was that the country’s interior minister, in order to resolve his problem with the government, threw all accusations at me and did not find anybody else to held responsible for all the events.
Thus I found myself not only being accused of trying to kill the Pope and bomb the churches but also of all terrorist operations in the Philippines.
Q. You mean there was cooperation between the US and the Philippines?
A. Sure. They searched my home and my office and asked the office staff about me. They tried to get anything that could incriminate me. They found nothing, even a shred of paper. At last they had to give up.
Q. What do you mean by giving up?
A. The American government tried to pressure me at the start of the trial and tried to pressure the judge so as not to release me. They presented a long list charges prepared by W. Cox, a terrorism expert at the State Department in which he said the American government had strong proofs that Muhammad Jalam Khalifa financed the bombing operations in Jordan and that he is a member of the Hamas and the Jamaa Islamiyah in Egypt and in every terrorist organization in the world.
Q. But they did not succeed in proving anything?
A. Yes. The lawyer showed me in the court the list of accusations and I told him that I challenge the American government to present any proof, strong or weak. We gave them a ten-day period to prove their case and requested that secretary of state and President Bill Clinton appear in court as witnesses and bring with them the proofs so they would be questioned by the lawyer. In the end they withdrew the charges.
Q. How were you linked to the case in Jordan?
A. After I spent more than four and half months in prison in the US, they could not prove the charges and I was sentenced previously in absentia in Jordan after being charged with financing the bombing operations. So they found a case against me where a sentence has been passed after having failed to prove any charge despite the extensive communications and search conducted by their embassies and offices throughout the world.
Q. That means they found what they were looking for in the Jordan case?
A. There was a political aspect to this. They said they would settle for the Jordan case on the grounds that Jordan is the key to peace with Israel and decided my extradition where I will never be able to get away.
Q. The FBI says you were in contact with Ramzi Yusuf and that they found your business card among his papers?
A. Let me explain something important. I was the director of the MWL office in the Philippines and this job, as everybody knows, give its occupier the opportunity to meat with hundreds of people who drop by everyday. He also get in touch and meets with all parties. In addition, I laid the foundation for a unique Islamic center in the Philippines with the aim of removing the misunderstanding between the Christians and Muslims. I built good relations, which I still keep.
Q. Do you mean to say you do not know Ramzi Yusuf?
A. I stress that I never met him in my life. I only knew him through the media after his arrest.
Q. Then how could they say you admitted knowing him?
A. This is impossible. I kept asking them for a proof but they couldn’t furnish any. The report in the New York Times is full of fallacies including the failure to reveal the name of the FBI agent who presented the information that I knew Ramzi Yusuf.
Q. Why do you want to know the name of this agent?
A. Because I am ready to take him to court and demand he prove his accusation.
Q. The Times report said you admitted to having financed the bombing operations in Jordan?
A. The case is simple. The Jordanian teacher (Abdullah Al-Hashaykah) and one of the accused worked with me as a teacher at the center in the Philippines for three months and then returned to his home country. I paid him $4,500 as salary and travel expenses. Can this be considered financing?
Q. There is also your relationship with Enaam Arnaout, the director of Benevolence International who is accused of funneling money to Al-Qaeda?
A. Enaam is one of hundreds of Arab youth whom I met in Afghanistan during my work as director of the MWL office in Peshawar, Pakistan, during the period 1986-1987. This takes me to my previous statement that my job entitled me to meet hundreds of people. Does this mean that I was in contact with them or that I belong to their organizations or groups or that I financed them?
Q. Having met Enaam, how do you describe your relation with him?
A. After meeting him in Afghanistan during that period Enaam visited Saudi Arabia twice and I paid him a courtesy call. That was all about my relation with him.
Q. The conclusion is that you deny any relation with him?
A. I do not deny my relation with him, what I deny is the relation they find about between him and me. Let me stress that I worked in the open and I represented my country in an official position - as director of the MWL in Peshawar and the Philippines.
Q. You seem to talk bitterly when saying your activities in the Philippines have caused your past and present problems?
A. They said I opened the MWL office to serve as a cover for (Osama Bin Laden) to finance terrorist organizations in the Philippines, but the office was opened at the official invitation from the Philippines Foreign Ministry. (I was not there by chance and I did not come to the Philippines from the street). I was holding an official position (we have special status) to the extent that the government decided to accord (diplomatic immunity) to all the staff.
Q. How was your position vis-a-vis the government of the Philippines after your acquittal in the Jordan case?
A. After I was acquitted in Jordan I called a press conference by telephone for which I invited all officials. My wife read out a statement. I was ready to answer any question and I told them that I expected the Philippines to defend me after serving there for nine years during which I witnessed all events in the country and I was a helping them with money and effort.
Q. What about Wali Khan who the Times report said you were in contact with through a mobile phone you own, and that there have been calls between the two of you and also that a phone book found with Khan had your number in it?
A. First, Wali Khan’s name is Osama Mulla and he was bon in Madinah. It is true he is not a Saudi national (he is Uzbek). He was one of my students when I was teaching. This youth came for jihad in Afghanistan and I met him there. After my return to Saudi Arabia I have not seen him. He visited me during my stay in the Philippines and talked about his wish to live in peace after having suffered from the situation in Afghanistan, I mean the differences and fighting among the Afghans?
Q. What happened between him and you?
A. I advised him to put the past behind him and to forget all that has anything to do with Afghanistan. Thus he lived in the Philippines and he visited me several time at my office and home.
Q. Is this the entire story?
A. Yes, that is it.
Q. There is Muhammad Bayazid. The Times report says you accompanied him during his journey to the US with the purpose of obtaining uranium to build a nuclear bomb in 1994?
A. I knew Muhammad Bayazid (He is Syrian) in Peshawar and he was with me during my journey to the US when I was arrested at the airport in San Francisco. Why haven’t they arrested him?
Q. All indications show that the Americans have been trying to prove something against you since 1993?
Q. The problem was mainly caused by the Jordan case where I was acquitted by two courts when the only proof presented (the statement by Al-Hashaykah) was challenged. He denied I had any link with the bombings. Let me again say something very important. If the Americans have found any documented link between me and Ramzi Yusuf or Wali Khan while I was in prison they would have never let me.
Q. Do you think that talking about the past has the objective of linking you with Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda?
A. I think the case relates to the media. What I want to say could be found in Saudi Arabia. Any one who writes about my case should have come to me to know the truth.
Q. How did your relationship start with Osama?
A. He was a colleague when we were studying at King Abdul Aziz University. He had great respect and appreciation for me. After that we were together in Afghanistan. Then I married his sister.
Q. Can you give more details?
A. In 1985 we went to Afghanistan as part of the thousands of enthusiastic Arab youth. Our objective was to help and provide relief to the Afghan people. We were based in Peshawar but we were separated.
Q. What do you mean by separation?
A. During my stay in Peshawar, I receive news that he started grouping the youth and started what was known as Al-Maasada. I went to him and tried to talk with him at the request of many Afghan officials to try to prevent him from what he was doing. I met him and tried to make him understand that we are here to assist and not to compete with others. I witnessed the death of many of the inexperienced youth at fighting. It was very painful for me.
Q. Did he accept your advice?
A. I advised him to focus on the objective for which we came which is relief assistance and leaving the entire matter to the Afghans. We began a debate that lasted for three days but in the end we reached a deadlock (despite his great respect for me) and I told him that as of that moment we go our separate ways.
Q. What happened next?
A. We returned to Saudi Arabia in 1987 and then I moved to work in the Philippines as director of WML during the period 1986-1987.
Q. Did you meet him after that?
A. Of course I met him, I am the husband of his sister. We met several times on family occasions when he returned to Saudi Arabia in 1991. But there was no confrontation between us or a return to the talk about his positions until he went to Sudan.
Q. Do you think Osama is behind all this?
A. All I could say is that Osama cannot plan for a sea journey, how could he do all this?
Q. What about your relation with Abu Sayyaf?
A. Please recall my previous answer. My position as director of the MWL office in the Philippines was a means to know may people (ordinary men and officials). Abu Sayyaf was one member of the public whom I knew. He was a student at the Islamic University and I met him several times but this does not mean I side with him.
Q. But you lived the events of Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines?
A. Yes, the MWL offered large assistance to the Philippines in the first confrontation with the group in 1993 when families moved out of Basilan and other areas in the south. The MWL through the relief organization rushed to assist the families. I recall that our assistance exceeded that provided by the government itself. They gave one million pesos while we gave three million pesos.
Q. What is the nature of the proposal you presented to the Philippines government a few months ago?
A. I proposed to them that I could assist the government in resolving the problem of Abu Sayyaf and other groups.
Q. How is that?
A. I personally see that the solution of the problem in the southern areas lies in the government presenting a project to develop the south - a project that transforms the area into a developed place and this means denying these groups any attempt to win over the people and turn them against the government and demand an Islamic rule.
Q. Could you elaborate?
A. When the development project succeeds the government can win the people and thus the population would stand against these groups and in the end the force of the people and not the government would achieve security and stability. If the government goes back to history it will find that its assumption of office and survival was because of such power.
Q. Have you visited the Philippines lately?
A. No, I did not visit the country since 1994 although I have family ties with them. I am married to two Filipino women and I have children from them.
Q. Is it true according to the Post that you were imprisoned in Saudi Arabia after?
Sept.11 because of that suggestion?
A. This is not true. After Sept.11, I recorded my statement with the Saudi officials when they asked me to do so and this contradicts what the report said that (I was imprisoned or I am currently in prison).
Q. Have you traveled to the US after your acquittal in the Jordan case?
A. I visited the whole world but not the US.
Q. What are you doing now?
A. I have personal business.
Q.Y our company name is Al-Barie (the innocent), is it intentional?
A. (laughing) There is something to it. When I set up this firm I contacted my lawyer in the US asking him to inform the government of the name of my company. I also mean to say that I am innocent.
