Adnan Khashoggi
Adnan Khashoggi (Arabic: عدنان خاشقجي, romanized: ‘Adnān Khāshuqjī; 25 July 1935 – 6 June 2017) was a Saudi businessman and arms dealer known for his lavish business deals and lifestyle.[2][3] He was estimated to have had a peak net worth of around US$4 billion in the early 1980s.[4]
Adnan Khashoggi
25 July 1935
Businessman
Jill Dodd
8, including Nabila Khashoggi
Mohammad Khashoggi
Samiha Ahmed
Samira Khashoggi (sister)
Soheir Khashoggi (sister)
Dodi Fayed (nephew)
Jamal Khashoggi (nephew)[1]
Emad Khashoggi (nephew)
Early life and education[edit]
Khashoggi was born in Mecca, to Muhammad Khashoggi, who was King Abdul Aziz Al Saud's personal doctor,[5] and Samiha Ahmed, a Saudi woman of Syrian origin.[6][7][8] Khashoggi's sister was author Samira Khashoggi who married businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed and was the mother of Dodi Fayed.[9] Another sister, Soheir Khashoggi, is a well-known Arab novelist (Mirage, Nadia's Song, Mosaic).[9] He had two brothers, Essam Khashoggi and Adil Khashoggi, and he named Triad Corporation in reference to himself and his two brothers. He was a paternal uncle of murdered journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.
Khashoggi was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt,[5] and the American universities Chico State, Ohio State, and Stanford. Khashoggi left his studies in order to seek his fortune in business.[10]
Geopolitical involvement[edit]
Khashoggi was directly involved in helping to organize and fund the top-secret Operation Moses in 1984 to airlift to safety 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel[37] during a famine caused by the Ethiopian Civil War.
Khashoggi was 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 Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) with Saudi and United States backing.[2] His role in the affair created a related controversy when Khashoggi donated millions to the American University in Washington DC, to build a sports arena which would bear his name.[38] Khashoggi was a member of the university's board of trustees from 1983 until his indictment on fraud and other charges in May 1989.[39] Khashoggi was "principal foreign agent" of the United States and helped establish the supranational intelligence partnership known as the Safari Club.[40]
In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland, accused of concealing funds, and held for three months. Khashoggi stopped fighting extradition when the U.S. prosecutors reduced the charges to obstruction of justice and mail fraud and dropped the more serious charges of racketeering and conspiracy. In 1990, a United States federal jury in Manhattan acquitted Khashoggi and Imelda Marcos, widow of the exiled Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, of racketeering and fraud.[41][42]
Khashoggi was a financier behind Genesis Intermedia, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: GENI), a publicly traded Internet company based in the US. In 2006, Khashoggi was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for securities fraud.[43] The case was dismissed in 2008 and Khashoggi did not admit or deny the allegations.[44]
In January 2003, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker magazine that former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle had a meeting with Khashoggi in Marseille in order to use him as a conduit between Trireme Partners, a private venture capital company of which he was one of three principals, and the Saudi government.[45] At the time, Perle was chair of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a Defense Department advisory group, which provided him with access to classified information and a position to influence defense policy.[45] Khashoggi told Hersh that Perle talked to him about the economic costs regarding a proposed invasion of Iraq. "'If there is no war,' he told me, 'why is there a need for security? If there is a war, of course, billions of dollars will have to be spent.'"[46]