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Adnan Khashoggi

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Adnan Khashoggi
Born (1935-07-25) 25 July 1935 (age 89)
Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Adnan Khashoggi (Arabic: عدنان خاشقجي, IPA: [ʕædˈnæːn xæːˈʃuqdʒiː]; born 25 July 1935) is a Saudi Arabian arms-dealer and businessman. He is also noted for his engagements with high society in both the Western and Arabic-speaking worlds, and for his involvement in the Iran–Contra and Lockheed bribery scandals. At a peak net worth of about $70 billion USD in the early 1980s, he was considered one of the richest men in the world.[1][2]

Early life

Khashoggi was born in Mecca, the son of Muhammad Khashoggi, who was King Abdel Aziz Al Saud's personal doctor. His family is of Turkish ancestry.[3] The family moved from the Iberian Peninsula and settled in Saudi Arabia. Adnan Khashoggi's sister Samira Khashoggi Fayed married Mohammed Al-Fayed and was the mother of Dodi Fayed.[3] Another sister, Soheir Khashoggi, is a well-known Arab writer (Mirage, Nadia’s Song, Mosaic).[4]

Khashoggi was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, and American Universities:California State University, Chico, Ohio State University, and Stanford University. Khashoggi later left his studies in order to seek his fortune in business.

Business career

Khashoggi headed a company called Triad Holding Company, which among other things built the Triad Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which later went bankrupt. He was famed as an arms dealer, brokering deals between US firms and the Saudi government, most actively in the 1960s and 1970s. In the documentary series The Mayfair Set, Saudi author Said Aburish states that one of Adnan's first weapons deals was providing David Stirling with weapons for a covert mission in Yemen during the Aden Emergency in 1963. Among his overseas clients were defense contractors Lockheed Corporation (now Lockheed Martin Corporation), Raytheon, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and Northrop Corporation (which have now merged into Northrop Grumman).

Between 1970 and 1975, Lockheed paid Khashoggi $106 million in commissions. His commissions started at 2.5% + and eventually rose to as much as 15%. Khashoggi "became for all practical purposes a marketing arm of Lockheed. Adnan would provide not only an entree but strategy, constant advice, and analysis," according to Max Helzel, then vice president of Lockheed's international marketing.[5]

A shrewd businessman, he covered his financial tracks by establishing front companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to handle his commissions as well as developing contacts with notables such as CIA officers James H. Critchfield and Kim Roosevelt and US businessman Bebe Rebozo, a close associate of former US President Richard Nixon. He was also involved in diamond mining in the Central African Empire, working closely with Emperor Bokassa. His yacht, the Nabila, was the largest in the world at the time and was used in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again.

Iran–Contra affair

He 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 now-bankrupt financial institution the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) with Saudi and US backing. In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland, accused of concealing funds, held for three months and then extradited to the United States where he was released on bail and subsequently acquitted. 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.[6]

Genesis Intermedia insolvency

Khashoggi, along with Ramy El-Batrawi, was the principal financier behind GenesisIntermedia, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: GENI), a publicly traded Internet company based in Southern California. After the 11 September attacks, Khashoggi's U.S.-based checking accounts were frozen and Khashoggi was unable to make a margin call with Native Nations Securities, whose CEO and largest shareholder, at the time, was Valerie Red-Horse, former office manager of junk bond king Michael Milken. In turn, Native Nations and Red Horse were unable to meet their obligations on the margin loan to MJK Clearing, Inc.[7][8] Trading in the stock of GenesisIntermedia was halted in September 2001. Khashoggi's unwillingness to pay his margin loan to Native Nations Securities, and Native Nations (and Red Horse's) inability to pay its debts to MJK Clearing, began a series of bankruptcies that ended in the largest payout in Securities Investor Protection Corporation history.[9][10] Native Nations Securities and MJK Clearing both eventually filed for bankruptcy.[11]

Personal life

In the 1960s he married 20-year old Englishwoman Sandra Daly (Sandra Patricia Jarvis-Daly) who converted to Islam and took the name Soraya Khashoggi.[12] They raised one daughter (Nabila) and four sons together (Mohammed, Khalid, Hussein, and Omar).[13]

His second wife, the Italian Laura Biancolini, also converted to Islam and changed her name to Lamia Khashoggi. She was only seventeen when she met Adnan and gave him in 1980 another son, Ali.[13]

In the 1980s the Khashoggi family occupied one of the largest villa estates in Marbella, Spain, called Baraka, hosting lavish parties usually arranged by Marbella's "Monroe's" club proprietor and local celebrity Robert Young (born Robert Parkes UK 1953). These parties were legendary, and guests included film stars, politicians, and pop celebrities. Food was supplied by up to 6 resident chefs, and it is said that champagne was kept in specially cooled trailers parked in the vast grounds of the complex.[14][15]

In 1985, celebrity reporter Robin Leach declared a birthday party in Vienna that Khashoggi threw for his eldest son to be "the most extravagant event in European history."[16]

DNA testing in 1999 confirmed that Petrina Khashoggi, who was born shortly after Adnan divorced her mother[17], was in fact biologically not his, but Jonathan Aitken's and Soraya's child.[18]

Khashoggi continues to live a quiet life in the Principality of Monaco, even after a British court ordered him to pay £7 million to a creditor. His services as a facilitator have been a recurring feature throughout US administrations since Nixon; most recently, he met Richard Perle shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[19]

Influence and legacy

Films

Books

Music

References

  • Ronald Kessler. The Richest Man in the World: The Story of Adnan Khashoggi, Warner Books, New York, 1986
  1. ^ David Leigh and Rob Evans. "Biography: Adnan Khashoggi". Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  2. ^ Michelle Green. "Unveiling Adnan Khashoggi: a Provocative Biography Tells of His Deals, His Wealth and His Women". Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  3. ^ a b The First Post. "Michelle avoids Khashoggi and Thatcher in Marbella". Retrieved 22 February 2011.
  4. ^ Rebecca Ponton. Soheir Khashoggi: Success Is No Mirage, Woman Abroad Magazine, Nº7, Sep/Oct 2001; retrieved 11 February 2012
  5. ^ Stengel, Richard (19 January 1987). "Cover Stories: Khashoggi's High-Flying Realm". Time (magazine). p. 5. Archived from the original on 19 September 2008. Retrieved 25 August 2008. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ "Marcos Juror Among Stewart Jury Finalists". 25 January 2004. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 11 September 2007. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ In the Matter of Dean C. Reder, Securities and Exchange Commission, 26 March 2007.
  8. ^ Mudry, Brent. "SEC files first suit in GenesisIntermedia debacle", Canada StockWatch, 4 June 2003.
  9. ^ Form 12B-25, Notification of Late Filing, Securities and Exchange Commission, 14 November 2001.
  10. ^ SIPC. "SIPC: BANKRUPTCY COURT CLEARS SALE OF TROUBLED MINNESOTA BROKERAGE FIRM, 175,000-Customer Firm Failure is Largest Ever Handled by SIPC", SIPC, 2 October 2001.
  11. ^ SIPC vs. MJK Clearing, Inc., United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Minnesota', 30 September 2006.'
  12. ^ "Former billionaire's wife Soraya Khasgoggi's modest life as a flower-seller". Daily Mail. London. 19 January 2007.
  13. ^ a b Dominick Dunne. Khashoggi’s Fall, Vanity Fair, September 1989; retrieved 11 February 2012
  14. ^ Pierre Trudeau, en casa de Khashoggui, La Vanguardia, 1986-08-06; retrieved 11 February 2012
  15. ^ Michelle Green. Unveiling Adnan Khashoggi: a Provocative Biography Tells of His Deals, His Wealth and His Women, People, vol.25, Nº8, 1986-02-24; retrieved 11 February 2012
  16. ^ Salmans, Sandra (22 February 1985). "Lavish Lifestyle Of a Wheeler-Dealer". New York Times. Retrieved 24 December 2011. Khashoggi's retreat at Marbella in southern Spain, an entire mountain with seven villas, a 1,300-acre hunting preserve and what we are told is the world's largest outdoor marble disco floor. We are led through his New York duplex, a $25 million apartment in the Olympic Tower on Fifth Ave.
  17. ^ Tom Kelly. It's hard living with the stigma of being Jonathan Aitken's love child, says Petrina Khashoggi, Mail Online, 2 June 2011; retrieved 11 February 2012
  18. ^ Family rallies round Aitken's secret Khashoggi love child The Guardian, Yvonne Ridley and Jonathan Calvert. 10 January 1999
  19. ^ Seymour M. Hersh Lubch with the Chairman. Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?, The New Yorker, 17 March 2003; retrieved 11 February 2012

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