NP: FBI 'was told to back off bin Laden family'

[JBFRAME at aol.com]

FBI 'was told to back off bin Laden family' 

London: United States special agents were told to back off the bin Laden 
family and the Saudi royals soon after George Bush became president, although 
that has all changed since September 11, a BBC television program has claimed 
BBC2's Newsnight also said on Tuesday night that it had secret documents from 
the FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks which showed that despite 
claims that Osama bin Laden is the black sheep of the family, at least two 
other US-based members are suspected of links with a possible terrorist 
organisation.
The program said it had obtained evidence that the FBI was on the trail of 
bin Laden family members living in the US before September 11. A document 
showed that special agents from the Washington field office were 
investigating Abdullah, a close relative of Osama, because of his 
relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a suspected 
terrorist organisation, it said. 
The US Treasury has not frozen WAMY's assets, and insists it is a charity, 
the program said, yet Pakistan had expelled WAMY "operatives" and India 
claimed WAMY was funding an organisation linked to bombings in Kashmir. The 
FBI did look into WAMY but for some reason agents were pulled off the trail, 
it said. 
The former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah from 1987 to 1989, 
Michael Springman, told the program: "In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly 
ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to 
unqualified applicants - people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to 
their own country. I complained there. I complained here in Washington ... 
and I was ignored." He added: "What I was doing was giving visas to 
terrorists, recruited by the CIA and Osama bin Laden to come back to the 
United States for training to be used in the war in Afghanistan against the 
then Soviets." 
The program said it had been told by a highly placed source in a US 
intelligence agency there had always been "constraints" on investigating 
Saudis, but under President George Bush it had become much worse.
After the elections, the intelligence agencies were told to "back off" from 
investigating the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals. The policy was 
reversed after September 11, it reported.

Press Association

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20011107/1730b21a/attachment.html>