http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... sp0161.htm
APPENDIX 33 - Continued
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APPENDIX 5
The Khashoggi Affidavit and the Fayed Bribe
Letter from Cameron Markby Hewitt, Solicitors, to Sir Gordon Downey[31]
Our client Mr R W Rowland has passed to us your letter of 31 October 1996 and has asked us to reply to it on his behalf.
Mr Rowland's instructions are that there is no truth whatsoever in the allegation made by Mr Fayed that Mr Michael Howard accepted payments from Lonrho, or agents acting on its behalf, in connection with the appointment in 1987 of Inspectors under the Companies Act 1985 to examine the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the House of Fraser by the Mr Fayed family.
Mr Rowland is aware that Mr Fayed has been making these allegations for some time and we are enclosing copies of correspondence exchanged between him and Mr Fayed about the allegations. You will see that copies of the correspondence have previously been supplied both to the Home Office and to the Cabinet Office. At Mr Rowland's request we are also sending you a copy of a draft affidavit which Fayed apparently attempted to persuade Mr Adnan Khashoggi to depose to. The affidavit bears in Mr Rowland's handwriting a note of the circumstances in which the draft was handed to him. We are also enclosing a statement prepared by Dr Marquand de Villiers of what was said to him at a meeting he had with Mr Khashoggi.
8 November 1996
Note handwritten by Mr R W Rowland upon the draft Affidavit (below) dated 1 May 1996
AK called to see me today and gave me this copy of this affidavit which Fayed asked him to sign against a cheque for $2 million.
AK told me that he had extricated himself as politely as possible by saying that he would send for his lawyer, Sam Evans, to join the discussion with Fayed, Macnamara and Royston Webb and a lady lawyer.
AK advised Fayed that he saw no benefit at all in it for either of them, as AK would be branding himself as a liar and an unreliable witness.
AK was given this document by Fayed, but AK had not in any way . . . [remaining words illegible].
1 May 1996
Text of draft Affidavit
IN THE MATTER OF A REPORT INTO HOUSE OF FRASER HOLDINGS PLC PURSUANT TO AN INVESTIGATION UNDER SECTION 432(2) OF THE COMPANIES ACT 1985
1. The contents of this Affidavit are based on my personal knowledge of events described and are true. I make this Affidavit in order to help correct certain findings made by the Inspectors appointed by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 1987 to investigate House of Fraser Holdings plc. I believe their findings were based upon certain incorrect or false information or documentation produced to them. I make this Affidavit voluntarily and without benefit to me.
2. I gave inaccurate information to the Inspectors. I also failed to give them information of which I was aware which would have benefited the Fayeds and shown them to be honest. I did this at the request of Mr R W Rowland ("Mr Rowland") and because he agreed to pay me a very substantial sum of money. I have now volunteered to make this Affidavit because I have been ashamed of the part I played in damaging the Fayeds' reputation.
3. I have known Mr Rowland since about 1980. From time to time prior to 1985 we did business together. He knew that I had been related by marriage to Mohamed Al Fayed, had been in business with him, and had known the Fayeds from school days.
4. I cannot now remember exactly when and where my first discussion with him took place on the subject of the Fayeds, but I think it was during early 1985 that he spoke with me and told me that he wanted to discredit the Fayeds. He asked me to help. He made clear that I would be very well paid if I was able to assist him by giving or organising information which would make it appear that the Fayeds came from a poor background and did not have sufficient wealth to finance the purchase of House of Fraser from their own resources. Mr Rowland told me that he was also organising other people to create or give this impression. I do not know the full details but from what he told me it was apparent that he was paying large sums of money to other people to do this and that much of what was being said was untrue.
5. As a result when in due course Inspectors were appointed to investigate the acquisition of House of Fraser by the Fayeds, Mr Rowland was able to organise matters so that the Inspectors received a lot of false information and documentation from a large number of different sources. In Egypt it is fairly easy to achieve anything in return for money and therefore even official records can be made to show false information.
6. I do not have time to go through in a great deal of detail what I have done to the Fayeds. I will therefore give some brief examples of false evidence or information which I know, or very strongly suspect, was given to the Inspectors. These examples are:
(a) I am told that the Inspectors heard evidence from Mr Peter Wickman who described himself as an independent journalist, working for Stern magazine, and as initially having no contact or dealings with Mr Rowland. I have also read Appendix 7 of the Inspectors Report. His evidence was untrue. On or about 25 May 1985 I was present with Mr Rowland and Dr A Marwan in the Sheraton Heliopolis Cairo when Mr Wickman joined us for a discussion with Mr Rowland. It was clear to me that Mr Wickman was working for Mr Rowland and acting in accordance with his instructions. When Mr Wickman joined us at our table, Mr Rowland received a report from him, and gave further instructions, regarding the contents of an article which Mr Wickman was preparing as part of Mr Rowland's attack on the Fayeds.
(b) I also confirm that Mr Rowland procured a payment by Lonrho into my bank account of the sum of US$3 million in respect of documents prepared by my associate, Shri Chandra Swamiji Maharej (the "Swami") implicating the Sultan of Brunei in the purchase of Harrods. It was subsequently revealed in English High Court proceedings, and I confirm, that these documents had been fabricated. Copies of the two documents involved, both of which were produced to the Inspectors, are now produced and shown to me marked "AK 1". As will be seen, they purport to be an Acknowledgement of Indebtedness, and a promissory note relating to a sum of US$200 million. The documents produced to the Inspectors were not originals. Once the revelation that they were false had occurred, Mr Rowland then demanded that I return the money. A copy of the demand from Lonrho is now produced and shown to be marked "AK 2". I was unable to do so and Mr Rowland later abandoned his claim because of other assistance I was able to provide to him.
(c) Mr Rowland further arranged for me to receive loans from Lonrho amounting to US$10 million in return for me providing him with assistance for his campaign against the Fayeds. This included me providing to the Inspectors certain documentary evidence, and attending before the Inspectors in order to give evidence adverse to the Fayeds. Mr Rowland told me the nature of the evidence he wanted me to give to the Inspectors. I would not have received the loans had I not agreed to assist Mr Rowland in this way. The information I provided to the Inspectors did not give an accurate picture of the Fayeds' history and business affairs, none of the documents I produced to the Inspectors were originals, and many of them had been fabricated so as to accord with Mr Rowland's wishes and instructions.
(d) I personally know that the Fayeds did in fact live as children in the house in Victoria, Alexandria, which they referred to in their evidence to the Inspectors. I visited them there when Mohamed was still at school. It is clear to me that Mr Rowland must have organised a campaign to make it appear that they were lying about this, and that they came from a poor background.
(e) During and prior to 1989, Mr Rowland, Ashraf Marwan and I were actively involved in numerous business dealings. During the course of conversations with both Mr Rowland and Ashraf Marwan I was told by them that Mr Rowland had advanced approximately £4 million to Ashraf Marwan to enable him to purchase a block of shares in House of Fraser plc at the same time that Lonrho had a 29.9 per cent shareholding. I was told by Mr Rowland and Ashraf Marwan that, because of the assistance provided by Ashraf Marwan to Mr Rowland in his campaign against the Fayeds, Mr Rowland did not seek the repayment of that sum when Ashraf Marwan subsequently sold the shares. I should explain that Ashraf Marwan was the son-in-law of the late President Nasser, and had been head of security, intelligence and information in Egypt. He had been trained by the KGB. He was therefore a man of great skill in intelligence, counter-intelligence and disinformation techniques, and of the utmost influence and power; this influence and power continued after President Nasser's death. He remained in a position to produce or obtain whatever false documents or information he wished or to arrange for the destruction of any documentation. I know that he used that power and influence to assist Mr Rowland in his attack on the Fayeds by manipulating information and evidence so as to ensure that false and damaging material was produced to the Inspectors.
30 April 1996
http://www.scallywag.org/diana/chapter-ix.html
IX - The Marwan Mystery
There is a whole other level of theory which is personally most attractive to me but does not necessarily directly include the Super-Establishment or any security services. It creates an entirely rather different scenario. But each scenario would be intricately linked. I hope I have established the simple fact that the British Old Guard had wholly disapproved of both al-Fayed and Diana. Even if they were not directly responsible for an assassination, it would have been remarkably convenient to them to dispose of the Princess before she did what they considered to be further serious damage to British interests. It is an earnest, if grim, contention of mine that, had they have been aware of an assassination plot against either the Fayed family or Diana, it would have been in the interests of the Old Guard to turn a blind eye. It is therefore important to establish that the tragedy may not have been against the Princess in particular, but could well have been against the Fayeds themselves.
When, at 17, Dodi first came to live in London his father gave him for his birthday his own mini-moke - and his first bodyguard. In later life, before the royal romance, he was never seen without at least two minders. This used to amuse people at, say, Tramps - the fashionable London night-club - because one man would always be close to Dodi while the other prowled around looking for threats of any kind. A table for six at the Ivy - one of his favourite London watering holes - would always have to be accompanied by at least two more seats for his minders. When the wars, first between al-Fayed and Tiny Rowland over the House of Fraser, and then during al-Fayed’s celebrated public fight with the Tory government, were at their height, Dodi may increase his personal bodyguard to four or even six. Other friends also noted that if he lost sight of his table at any time, he would discard all the drinks and order fresh ones. He was terrified that someone may have spiked his drink. This was the same in Hollywood where friends would joke about it with him. As an excuse, he would sometimes say, "my father is involved with some very dangerous things," and once he referred to a mysterious "kidnap attempt in Egypt when I was young." The Broccoli family (of James Bond film fame) - close friends for years - put it down to his "James Bond make-believe fantasies." But now, no one is so sure.
There is strong evidence to suggest that all the Fayed’s lived in a constant state of paranoia. Mohamed himself still lives in a series of fortresses, guarded by a private army of professional minders. Paranoia or not, both al-Fayed and his son certainly believed there was a constant threat to their lives. In early 1998 it was alleged by a former top Harrods security man that all the ‘phones in the store were bugged and anything of sensitivity was reported back to the boss. It is the same at the Ritz. This is a positive sign of latent paranoia.
While trawling the net for leads I suddenly came across an item which looked very familiar. And as I read through it I realised I was the original author. I remember the story well, but had forgotten (the article was five years old) that it had a very heavy al-Fayed connection. Enough anyway in this narrative to diverge somewhat. I had written the article while Scallywag was still confined to Camden in North London which, as hundreds of thousands of tourists know, has a huge and cosmopolitan open-air market each weekend. One section is called The Stables and was once used to house horses overnight which during the day had pulled the barges along the Regent’s Canal. The Stables had a chequered history and had changed hands several times. Camden council had virtually given it away to a collection of artists and craftsmen to set up workshops. By the nineties the whole market had taken off and the real estate had become almost priceless. The entire area around the market and canal had become vastly fashionable and such things as old railway sheds and canal warehouses were being converted into flats at astronomical profits. At Scallywag we set out to find out who was making all the money. We established that The Stables had been ultimately bought by - to us - a mystery Egyptian called Ashraf Marwan.
Virtually nothing was known about him at the time. There were a couple of innocuous cuttings in newspaper libraries, but no real information. We did a check at Companies House on the finance company behind the deals called Cabra. (Companies House is the official register of any British limited company and any such company is obliged under the law to lodge all their official papers and accounts there). We discovered a fascinating web of dodgy companies run by "faces" which put their names to it, but were not the power behind the throne. Marwan - in hundreds of sheets of financial detail - got a single cursory mention and his address was given as a firm of accountants. While we seemed to be getting nowhere, we were getting very interested indeed in Marwan.
Right opposite the Stables, by coincidence, was Checkers, a small café that specialised in those days in chess between Hampstead intellectuals. It was owned by a fun-loving and rapacious Egyptian gambler called Ali Amin who had taken to having an evening pint in the Man in the Moon, virtually next door, which happened to be our local as well. I don’t know Ali’s full background, but he did not appear in a hurry to rush back to Egypt and had married a delightful woman called Polly. When I mentioned Marwan’s name Ali became visibly excited and came out with a huge spiel about just who he was. Because Ali had been a leading light at the Egyptian service at the BBC World Service for some time, and had been a previous Egyptian chess champion, he still had the very best Egyptian connections in London. Good enough, for example, for him to produce the files on Marwan from the Egyptian embassy which made riveting reading.
Over the next few weeks he invited a stream of Egyptian ex-pats to Checkers and we were soon able to build up a fascinating picture of this man and his activities. It soon emerged that he was a principal player in the Tiny Rowland -v- al-Fayed war over the House of Fraser which owned Harrods. This war produced damage of a gigantic nature on both sides. Rowland and al-Fayed both threw cartloads of dung at each other. At a later stage al-Fayed’s office leaked further information on Marwan and his involvement to us. It was very high-calibre intelligence, and we were able to corroborate much of it from our own sources.
Our own further story (after reading the files) originally centred on a trip in a private Lear jet to Cairo in May 1985. On board were the Libyan Head of Intelligence, Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam, a cousin of Colonel Gaddafi the Libyan President, and Marwan. Both, according to the Egyptian files, were murderous and Marwan was known throughout Egypt as "Dr. Death". The mission, incredibly, was to blackmail the then Egyptian Prime Minister, Husni Mubarak, to abandon the Camp David agreement. If he did not, the mission was to arrange to blow up Tahir Square in the luxury Garden City quarter. Even to us it seemed an incredible plot. But the files dug deeper and became even more fantastic as we delved on.
Both the men on that jet were sinister and secret players on the London property stage - and in international arms dealing and terrorism.
By then Marwan had been doing business with Rowland for two years. By December the year before Marwan had bought into the House of Fraser, eventually to the tune of £4 million. In the 1984-5 inquiry conducted by John Griffiths QC, he concluded that Marwan was acting as a front-man for Rowland. At around the same time, Mrs Salah al-Fayed, Dodi’s aunt, strangely also bought into Fraser - in her maiden name of Adriana Funera. She and Marwan used the same stockbroker and seven months later she sold all her shares to Marwan. From here on the names of Rowland and Marwan become ever more intricately linked in a whole web of intrigue.
The first time Marwan had done business with Rowland was in 1979 when he purchased 40% of a company called Tradeswind which was 60% owned by Lonrho, Rowland’s parent company. Marwan had registered as director, instead of his own name, the same al-Dam. Other board members were Rowland, and prominent Tory, Sir Edward Du Cann. Marwan and al-Dam quickly began making profits for Tradeswind transporting arms from the US to the Lebanon and Libya. The files showed that they had got round strict US government embargoes by the simple expedient of bribing two CIA officers (later prosecuted and convicted), called Ed Wilson and Frank Terpil. When I subsequently put these names to security contacts, the case was very well known and their eventual confessions showed a can of worms wholly linked to world terrorism. There is still an arrest warrant outstanding against Marwan and al-Dam should they ever set foot in the States. The inquiry into the two CIA officers revealed that Tradeswind, on the outside a seemingly respectable airline company, was also supplying arms to terrorist organisations, including the infamous Abu Nidal group.
Through al-Dam, Marwan soon had a close relationship with Gaddafi which was to prove most lucrative for both. Libya soon invested $12 million in Lonrho-owned interests and in turn Rowland began investing heavily in the fledgling Libyan leisure industry, such as seaside hotels. Gaddafi used the government-owned Lafico oil company to invest in London, especially into the Lonrho Metropol Hotels Group. Lonrho, in turn invested similar amounts in real estate in Libya. Both sides used money from the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company. As there was a strict embargo in trade with Libya, this was a lucrative and convenient way of laundering funds.
Marwan and al-Dam were whisked regularly to and from Libya in a Rowland-owned private jet. On behalf of Gaddafi, but not under the auspices of Tradeswind directly, al-Dam and his equally notorious brother Sayad, the couple became the principle organisers of virtually all the European terrorist activity, including supplying deadly C4 plastic explosives to Abu Nidal.
Investigators established that Lonrho’s share of Tradeswind was hidden in a Liechtenstein-based company called Emery Establishment SA which was a subsidiary of Marwan’s holding company. Marwan then became the principle mover of arms to Frelimo in Mozambique because Gaddafi believed the government was being backed by Israel.
Later, in his notorious fight with al-Fayed, Rowland used a Marwan-owned company called Octagon which employed a team of private detectives, led by a former top policeman called David Coughlin, to run a dirty tricks department against al-Fayed.
I go into such details in some length because it is important to illustrate that al-Fayed is not just a rather cuddly owner of the Top People’s Store but has at various stages been contending an almost murderous war with people who would think absolutely nothing of assassinating him.
In fact, Marwan and al-Fayed were contemporaries in Egypt and both have rags-to-riches backgrounds, although al-Fayed has always falsely claimed he came from a wealthy family. Marwan’s astronomical rise to power began when he was a penniless student in Cairo under Nasser. He managed to get himself close to Nasser’s favourite daughter, Muna, who fell in love with him. Nasser - Britain’s great enemy because of Suez - seemed to like the young man and gave his blessing to a marriage.
Immediately after his wedding day - without so much as a proper honeymoon - Marwan was appointed as a "roving ambassador". His assignment was to roam the world on Nasser’s behalf as a sort of playboy-diplomat, a job for which Marwan showed an immediate aptitude. Evil though he most certainly was, Marwan was by no means without charm and intelligence. His job, mainly in the Arab world itself, was to probe governments’ attitude towards Nasser and to lobby on his behalf. He was adept at showing he was "close to the throne" and other Arabs were convinced that whatever Marwan said, it was the voice of Nasser himself. Consequently in these early days, Marwan, was forging invaluable links through the Middle East. As a sideline, purely for himself but with a generous Nasser budget, he began amassing his own files on almost anyone who was anyone in the Arab world, especially in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
It was at this time that Marwan also began, in a small way at first, organising arms deals. By the time Nasser had died, Marwan had stashed several million dollars into various European and off-shore banks. As it turned out Nasser’s death was an advantage because a young, unsure and fledgling Sadat was desperate to surround himself with key people he thought he could trust. Marwan would obviously be a deadly enemy if he were not courted. As a result Marwan went from roving diplomat to Minister Without Portfolio. That innocuous title hid an awesome power. Marwan kept all his diplomatic privileges, but was now to get into arms dealing in a very big way. His real power, however, came from the umbrella which Sadat had created to use Marwan’s talents in many other ways.
He was, in effect, Chief of Staff for Information and Chairman of the Arab Corporation for War Industries. These two posts alone would represent great and lucrative power in Sadat’s Egypt. But then Sadat appointed him Head of the Security Forces. This made him not only the ultimate supremo of the army and air force, but also the civil and secret police. This was not only unprecedented, but almost inconceivable. It was this man, don’t forget, who would ultimately become a principal player against the Fayed family.
Between 1974 and 1978 Marwan masterminded a mass of arrests and created sophisticated torture chambers, which reflected Sadat’s terrible fear of assassination. Marwan played on this fear to consolidate his power. His name in Cairo changed from the "Miracle Child" to "Dr. Death." as wave after wave of legal terrorism swept the capitol. In his capacity under Sadat, Marwan managed to stash no less than £340 million, mainly in London where he was madly buying property. As head of the armed forces and Chairman of the Arab Corporation for War Industries, he merely awarded himself all the arms contracts and the millions rolled in. His lifestyle began to reflect his new-found riches. He bought a luxury apartment in the "most expensive street in the world" - No. 50 Avenue Foch in Paris (a stone’s throw from Dodi’s apartment) where he had by then installed Muna. He festooned her with the most expensive jewels from Cartier. He bought himself a private Falcon jet to whisk him to and from Paris for dinner at Maxims. The penniless student had become one of the richest men in the world, within a single decade.
Then the world stage changed as Sadat was being wooed towards Camp David. Marwan quickly saw the writing on the wall, and fled to Paris. Sadat was furious and immediately withdrew Marwan’s diplomatic status. It was resumed only days after Sadat’s assassination. It is not known, but widely assumed, that Marwan was the brains behind the assassination.
When his status was restored, Marwan left Muna in Paris and, with almost unlimited funds and important contacts throughout the Arab world, he was ready for his formidable assault on London.
He operated under the parent company, Cabra, and within a decade he would buy and sell among much else (and sometimes as a broker for other Arabs), the Playboy Club, Chelsea and Fulham football grounds (Fulham is now owned by al-Fayed). He purchased significant sections of Mayfair, Bloomsbury and the West End of London, including a theatre. If he had kept to property alone he could have become a billionaire in his own right, but he met Adnan Khashoggi, whom he had known in Saudi. Despite the fact that Adnan was al-Fayed’s former brother-in-law and therefore an uncle of Dodi, Khashoggi did not seem to have the slightest allegiance to the Fayeds. In turn, Khashoggi introduced Marwan to the Muktoum brothers, of racehorse fame, who subsequently introduced him to Tiny Rowland.
At that stage there was no reason at all why Marwan should have the slightest personal animosity towards al-Fayed. But the Muktoums did - there had developed almost a feudal war between them - and so did Tiny Rowland.
This feud between the Muktoums and al-Fayed remains a mystery to me and al-Fayed is still evasive about it. It seems to be a family matter. It could be that the Muktoums, through their strings of racehorses, enjoy a unique relationship with the Queen. It could be because of old bad feelings between Dubai and Brunei. It could be a purely Arab feud because of an early insult. It could be business. Or arms trade, or simply because the Muktoums put in their lot with Fayed’s sworn enemy, Tiny Rowland.
Suffice it to say that a strong working relationship between Rowland, Marwan, the Muktoums, Gaddafi, and al-Dam would have made a formidable and powerful cocktail which could have unleashed almost unlimited venom.
Through Marwan, they all set up Octagon which would mastermind the dirty tricks against al-Fayed. As usual the actual ownership of Octagon would be shrouded in a whole network of other companies which were mainly off-the-shelf and non-operative.
Since then, however, Rowland and al-Fayed have, on the face of it, made their peace and it seems very unlikely indeed that Rowland would now be interested in any plot to actually kill Diana. Again, however, Rowland was a man possessed, to whom the death of a Fayed would have been a great convenience. It would have settled the ultimate score of revenge. I cannot trust a man who openly cavorts with terrorism masterminded by Gaddafi. If he did so, which is provable, then anything can be believed of him.
There was one other thing of enormous significance. Al-Fayed had a long-standing relationship with the Sultan of Brunei and it was an accusation Rowland had made to the DTI that the Fayed family were not of substance and had been "sponsored" by the Sultan. Even on Arab oil standards, the Sultan is preposterously rich, billed as the richest man in the world. This was an allegation, of course, set up by Octagon.
At some stage in the past decade Marwan was trying to pull a confidence trick on the Sultan, with a view of changing his allegiance to the Muktoum camp and away from al-Fayed. Because of al-Fayed’s equally high level of intelligence, he was able to spike this plot and in so doing he made an immediate and bitter lifelong enemy of Marwan. The feud between the Muktoums and the Fayeds is more mysterious. Octagon also employs the notorious al-Dam, controlled by Gaddafi. It is a most unholy and dangerous alliance, and none of these players would care one iota about Diana.
There is no doubt in my mind, that a plot by these people to kill al-Fayed himself was highly probable and possible. When these plans were frustrated, it is by no means inconceivable that they should go for his eldest son. It is very much how the mind of Marwan and al-Dam would work. We are back in the Bedouin tent. An eye for an eye. But this time there wasn’t even a nuance of Bedouin diplomacy. We don’t positively know how the mind of Gaddafi really works, but we do know that he has shown strains of eccentricity bordering on insanity, and that because of his relationship with Tiny Rowland, he was firmly and dangerously in the anti-Fayed camp. Even if he was not a direct conspirator, he could have supplied the sophisticated intelligence equipment needed to carry out an undetectable assassination. He would not have needed to finance it. Between them, these would-be conspirators had more than enough funds to buy up anything they needed. Also, Paris was very much home ground to Marwan and al-Dam. Marwan, in the Avenue Foch, was almost a neighbour of Dodi off the Champs Elysées. Even if the Muktoums were not in the conspiracy they would have been very pleased with the death of Dodi.
None of the players in this particular scenario are amateurs. Marwan himself is a former head of intelligence and terror squads, and al-Dam still is. Both have irrefutable terrorist backgrounds and both have never given a toss for human life.
As we go on later to examine the circumstances of the actual accident, it will become obvious that this faction was entirely capable of carrying out such an operation.
My main question is simple. How was a man like Marwan able, for two decades now, to operate terrorist activity from the UK and France with complete impunity? It is absolutely impossible that he could have evaded the interest of the whole world’s intelligence services, including MI5, MI6, the CIA, Mossad, all the Arab states, France, and, because of his strong connections with Rowland - who had vast interests in Africa - most of Africa as well, without ever being molested or restrained in any way. As a friend of Gaddafi, for example, he would automatically have been an enemy of Israel. He faces immediate arrest in the US. Why not in the UK? Why has the US not tried for extradition proceedings?
If ourselves and the al-Fayed team were easily able to identify him as an organiser of terrorism, and as Top Secret files in, at the very least, the Egyptian embassy in London were undoubtedly available to the CIA and MI6, how is it that he has never been apprehended?
If CIA files in the US, concerning the connivance of two of their top agents in terrorism, showed adequately enough that Marwan was involved in supplying arms to terrorists (enough anyway to issue an arrest warrant), how come Britain and France have seemingly never taken an interest? Tradeswind was fully covered in inter-office CIA files and formed the basis of the agents’ prosecution. Why is it still trading?
How was it that Gaddafi’s cousin and his brother - both infamous international murderers - and Nasser’s former political henchman (Marwan), could move freely in and out of London, Paris and Tripoli, when there were global sanctions against Gaddafi? How was it, come to that, that despite the sanctions, Rowland himself was able to openly launder money for the Gaddafi regime?
Al-Fayed’s painstakingly-constructed files have now been widely circulated to the whole gamut of the "Middle-Establishment" - the police, MP’s, newspapers and so on. Our own observations, fully backed by huge and authentic documentation, have been published in full (the whole series eventually ran to 30,000 words). This means that for at least ten years now there has been widely published material on Marwan and Co.’s covert activities. No one has ever so much as questioned him officially. The media also have steered ominously clear, despite much hectoring from the Fayed camp. Yet even with our own slender resources, often working on a shoestring budget with a largely inexperienced staff, we were able to supply irrefutable evidence that Ashraf Marwan was a complete undesirable to these shores.
The fact is that it is so very inexplicable that one can really only come to one conclusion: That Ashraf Marwan, must have been so useful to the Super-Establishment (in particular the secret agencies and the Foreign Office) that it was prudent and expedient of them to either turn a blind eye - or to use him for their own ends.
Being a trained espionage agent himself, Marwan would have been very well placed to play both sides against the other for his own gain and protection. If nothing else he has been a supreme survivor in a very murky world.
It is established fairly generally that professional espionage agencies are well versed in using their supposed enemies as agent provocateur in sophisticated political games. (Just look at the CIA’s involvement with the drug cartels of Columbia). By using the Marwan set-up they could have closely monitored Gaddafi’s thinking and motives; Abu Nidal’s terrorist intentions (among others); plots against the Camp David accord; arms dealing generally; the Egyptian political scene - and, come to that, the French; had a close link to the Muktoums, and therefore Dubai; kept a wary eye on Tiny Rowland; and, to boot, almost incidentally, al-Fayed.
Cold journalistic logic brings one to the inevitable conclusion that Ashraf Marwan made the most perfect double agent for nearly all of the Mid-eastern and Western espionage agencies. It simply stands to reason. And the strong circumstantial evidence is that Marwan could not possibly have moved freely in London or Paris (in the particular activities he was known to be engaged in) unless he enjoyed absolute immunity, or, at the very least, official protection. I simply defy anyone to argue against this.
It is possible that the files produced by the Fayed PR and investigative machine were biased against the Rowland machine - in fact, there is little question - but his profiles on Octagon and Marwan were all irrefutably documented. Our own completely independent investigation tied in almost exactly with the conclusions of his high-powered and well-financed team.
As such, if there was a well-organised Libyan-based plot to do harm to the Fayeds, then Mossad and the British security agencies simply had to know about it. One can only conjecture that if they had blown Marwan, they would have blown the cover of one of their most valuable double agents.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/a ... rent_id=17
Marwan, 62, who was married to Nasser’s daughter Mona, had been living in London for many years after leaving Egyptian government service in the late Seventies.
His widow was set to fly to London after travelling from Beirut to Cairo on Wednesday where she was met at the airport by family members.
Essam Abdel Samad, the head of the Union of Egyptians in Europe, said he had spoken to Marwan’s maid, who said she was the only other person in the fourth floor flat at the time.
“She said she was working in the kitchen and he was in his office and the first thing she knew was when someone came to the door and said he had fallen,” Samad told Egyptian satellite TV station al-Youmin a telephone call from London.
The former shareholder in Chelsea FC had spoken about his fears of being killed after he was accused three years ago of being an agent during the Yom Kippur war.
Israeli media claimed that on the eve of the war of October 1973, Marwan told Mossad that Egypt and Syria were about to attack Israel.
However, some members of London’s Arab community believe he might have committed suicide after he was diagnosed with a serious illness.
Marwan associated with some of Britain’s wealthiest people. His contacts included former Chelsea chairman Ken Bates, arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, the late Tiny Rowland and Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.
