Press Release
Swiss Court Clears Saudi Businessman of 9/11 Links
Press Release
22 December 2005
A prominent Saudi businessman and benefactor whose assets were frozen by the US and the UN after September 11 was last week cleared of any connection to the Twin Towers attacks by a Swiss court.
The Federal Criminal Court in Berne ruled on 12 December that Sheikh Yassin Abdullah Kadi did not know and could not have known that payments he made to fund a University in Yemen in 1998 could be used to finance the September 11 attacks.
The ruling came after 16 American relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks applied to the Swiss authorities to join the Swiss investigation against Mr Kadi as civil parties.
The 16 individuals are all plaintiffs in the civil "Burnett" action in the US in which victims' relatives are claiming damages against various individuals or entities, including Mr Kadi, on the basis of allegations that they financed terrorism.
The Swiss court rejected their request because: "...nothing in the file allows one to conclude with sufficient likelihood that Yassin Abdullah Kadi knew or was able to know that the payments he made and for which he is implicated in the Swiss proceedings, could serve to specifically finance the attacks of September 11 2001".
The decision was welcomed by Mr Kadi. He said from Jeddah: " I am delighted by this judgment which categorically concludes that the transfers being investigated by the Swiss authorities - which were all bona fide donations for the purpose of benefiting a University in Yemen - had nothing whatsoever to do with the September 11 attacks. In all my individual, business and charitable activities I have never supported, nor have I intended to support in any manner whatsoever Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda. "
The Swiss court held that it is impossible on the basis of the file and the chronology of events to conclude that there is any link between the payments in question, which took place between 24 February and 3 August 1998, and the planning of the attacks.
The payments were made for the purpose of funding a student housing project at Al Iman University, Yemen.
Although the Swiss authorities began investigating Mr Kadi's activities in Switzerland in October 2001 at the instigation of the US, over four years later no charges have been brought against him.
The Swiss investigation into Mr Kadi, which is now in the hands of the investigating judge, is one of several procedures opened by the Swiss judicial authorities since the events of September 2001.
One of them, which implicated the heads of Al-Taqwa Bank in Lugano, had to be suspended last Spring due to lack of evidence.
The file opened against Mr Kadi was dogged by controversy last year when the French private investigator Jean-Charles Brisard, appointed by the Deputy Prosecutor Claude Nicati, had to be removed from the investigation because of a serious confidentiality violation.
The criminal case lodged by Mr Kadi's Swiss lawyers as a result of this violation is still being examined by a Special Prosecutor.
Mr Guy Martin, of Carter-Ruck, Mr Kadi's London-based solicitors, said "This judgement vindicates the position Mr Kadi has maintained from the outset that he is innocent of the allegations against him. Mr Kadi's legal team has analysed thousands of documents and interviewed numerous witnesses in various jurisdictions and has found no evidence that he ever financed or supported in any manner Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda. "