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Adnan Khashoggi

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Adnan Khashoggi (or Kashoggi) (Arabic:عدنان خاشقجي)(born 25 July 1935) is a billionaire Saudi arms-dealer and businessman, and was involved in the Iran-Contra Affair.

History

Kashoggi is the son of Muhammad Khashoggi a medical doctor, and was educated in Victoria College in Alexandria in Egypt, California State University, Chico, and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA. He is Turkish by descent.

It is said that Kashoggi quit his studies in order to seek his fortune in business. Khashoggi headed a company called Triad Holding Company, which amongst other things built the Triad Centre in Salt Lake City, Utah, which later went bankrupt. He was famed as an arms dealer, brokering deals between US firms and the Saudi Government, most actively in the 1960s and 1970s. Among his overseas clients were defense contractors Lockheed Corporation (now Lockheed Martin Corporation), Raytheon, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and Northrop Corporation (which have now merged into Northrop Grumman). A shrewd businessman, he covered his financial tracks by establishing front companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to handle his commissions as well as developing contacts with notables such as CIA agents James H. Critchfield and Kim Roosevelt and US businessman Bebe Rebozo, a close associate of former US President Richard Nixon.

Among Kashoggi's activities reported in the news was a reported $1 billion 1980 divorce settlement paid to his ex-wife Soraya. He was also implicated in the Iran-Contra Affair as a key middleman in the arms-for-hostages exchange along with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, and in a complex series of events, was found to have borrowed money for these arms purchases from the now-bankrupt financial institution the Bank of Credit and Commerce International with Saudi and US backing. In 1988, Kashoggi was arrested in Switzerland, accused of concealing funds, and held for three months and then extradited to the United States where he was released on bail and subsequently acquitted. Since then he has kept a low profile, last resurfacing in 1992 to mediate for Col. Ghaddafi of Libya his investment in the United Kingdom and in the Principality of Monaco Metropole Hotels. Adnan Khashoggi continues to live a quiet life in the Principality of Monaco, even though a warrant for his arrest was issued in the Court of Her Majesty the Queen of England in the amount of 7 Million sterling pounds. His "services" as a "facilitator" have never ceased throughout US administrations since Nixon, and lately, he met with Richard Perle, shortly before the American invasion of of Iraq, in 2003.

Trivia

  • Khashoggi was well known for leading an extravagant and wild lifestyle that was legendary in its time. This was commemorated on rock band Queen's album The Miracle, on which the second song is titled Khashoggi's Ship. The song mentions his super yacht "Nabila" built by Benettiand appearing in the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again". The yacht was later acquirred by Donald Trump who added a 50 meter extension to the yacht and renamed it "Trump Princess" for Ivana Trump. After Donald Trump's divorce, the yacht was resold to another Saudi Businessman, a nephew of Khashoggi. It is now anchored in Cannes, in the south of France under the new name of "Kingdom 5 KR"
  • Army of lovers band featured Khashoggi in its song La Plage De Saint Tropez with the following line: "We met Khashoggi with a gun".
  • Harold Robbins´novel The Pirate (1974) is supposed to be inspired by the life and lifestyle of Khashoggi.
  • American University used to have a prominent building named the Khashoggi Center but after defaulting on his donation obligation, the school removed his name from the building.
  • One of "his" daughters with ex-wife Soraya Khashoggi, turned out, on DNA testing at age 18, to be the daughter of UK Tory Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken, soon to be disgraced for his role in accepting a gift from another arms dealer, Mohammed Said Ayas, a Lebanese and a close associate of Prince Muhammad bin Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In his libel suit against the Guardian newspaper, Aitken perjured himself over this gift of accommodation at the Paris Ritz and went to jail.

See also

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