Both the London and New York Times newspapers run stories on the freezing of some of Saudi Prince Bandar’s assets by an American court. The freeze comes as the result of a class action suit by a Michigan pension fund alleging it suffered losses as the result of the disputed ‘Al-Yamamah’ arms deal of the 1980s. Also named in the suit is the now-defunct Riggs Bank of Washington, DC which had violated US banking regulations concerning the reporting of the transfer of foreign funds.

The two pieces:

The Times (London): Saudi royal Prince Bandar Bin Sultan’s assets frozen

The New York Times: US Judge Blocks Bandar Funds Transfer

I suspect that a higher court will overturn this decision.


February:10:2008 - 10:05 | Comments & Trackbacks (3) | Permalink
3 Responses to “The Timeses on Freezing Bandar’s Assets”
  1. 1
    Sparky Said:
    February:10:2008 - 12:05 

    ”The accounts at Riggs Bank were in the name of the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defense and Aviation (MODA). Any payments into those accounts made by BAE were pursuant to the Al-Yamamah contracts and as such would not in any way have been secret from the parties to those contracts,” Bandar’s statement said. Al-Yamamah was the name given to an agreement under which BAE supplied Tornado fighter jets and other military equipment to Saudi Arabia, which paid the British government with oil.”

    Doesn’t surprise me the accounts would be connected to that Ministry. Did I ever mention my children were food poisoned and I am still waiting for a stinking 10,000 S.R. per child? Oh well, what goes around comes back around and when it does boy does it hurt bad!
    hehehehehehehe
    “In London, lawmakers disclosed last month that Britain’s head of overseas intelligence had warned that Saudi Arabia probably would stop sharing vital information on terrorism if prosecutors pursued an investigation into alleged corruption in the arms deal.”
    Isn’t that blackmail?

    Don’t step to America nor Snoop Dog!

  2. 2
    John Burgess Said:
    February:10:2008 - 18:23 

    Not blackmail, but most definitely a threat to withhold cooperation.

    The legal definition of blackmail is:

    The crime involving a threat for purposes of compelling a person to do an act against his or her will, or for purposes of taking the person’s money or property.

    The term blackmail originally denoted a payment made by English persons residing along the border of Scotland to influential Scottish chieftains in exchange for protection from thieves and marauders.

    In blackmail the threat might consist of physical injury to the threatened person or to someone loved by that person, or injury to a person’s reputation. In some cases the victim is told that an illegal act he or she had previously committed will be exposed if the victim fails to comply with the demand.

    Withholding a future benefit is not quite the same.

  3. 3
    Sparky Said:
    February:11:2008 - 01:10 

    My Oxford dictionary has two definitions for blackmail basically the one you mentioned and the second is “use of threats to influence a person or group”

    Ex: “Increase your productivity or lose your jobs.” “That’s blackmail”

    I am quoting a British dictionary, so the Brits might agree that it is blackmail.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

spacer

  • Advertising Info

    Interested in advertising on or sponsoring Crossroads Arabia? Contact me for more information.

  • Copyright Notice

    All original materials copyright, 2004-2012. Other materials copyrighted by their respective owners.