Saudi aid organisation laundered money through Croatia

Saudi aid organisation laundered money through Croatia: report
Agence France Presse -- English - September 21, 2005 Wednesday 1:15 PM GMT

ZAGREB Sept 21 - A Saudi aid organisation linked to the Al-Qaeda terror network laundered some 900 million dollars through a Croatian bank in the early 1990s to finance Muslim fighters in neighboring Bosnia, a report said Wednesday.

"Al-Qaeda laundered 900 million dollars through Croatia," read the headline of an article in the Nacional weekly.

The report was based on allegations presented to a US court by a Croatian national who testified as a protected witness during the trial of a Yemeni cleric convicted for supporting Al-Qaeda, Nacional said.

The US court in July sentenced Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad to 75 years in prison and fined him 1.25 million dollars for conspiring to support Al-Qaeda.

The witness, who worked for the humanitarian organisation in the early 1990s, also provided details about suspicious money transfers "which ended in Bosnia and maybe elsewhere," the weekly said.

"By 1993, some 800-900 million dollars had been deposited in a Zagrebacka Bank account by the organisation," founded to help Bosnian Muslim refugees in the country's 1992-1995 war.

An estimated 90 percent of the money went towards Muslim troops in Bosnia while the remainder was used for humanitarian purposes, Nacional said.

The organisation closed its Zagreb office in the mid-1990s when Croatian authorities launched a probe into suspected Islamic organisations.

Bosnia came under international scrutiny following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, after a number of Islamic radicals fought alongside the Muslim-led Bosnian army in the 1992-1995 war.