Adnan Khashoggi

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Adnan Khashoggi (or Kashoggi) (Arabic:عدنان خاشقجي, Turkish: Adnan Kaşıkçı) (born 25 July 1935 in Mecca) is a billionaire Saudi arms-dealer and businessman. He is also noted for his engagements with high society in both the Occidental and Arabic-speaking worlds, and for his involvement in the Iran-Contra, BCCI and numerous other affairs.

1 History
2 Personal life
- 2.1 Divorce from Soraya
- 2.2 Association with Heather Mills
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

Khashoggi is the son of Muhammad Khashoggi, a medical doctor who was Turkish by descent. His sister Samira Khashoggi Fayed was the mother of Dodi Fayed, who died with Princess Diana.

Khashoggi was educated in Victoria College in Alexandria in Egypt, California State University, Chico, Ohio State University, and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA. It is said that Khashoggi quit his studies in order to seek his fortune in business.

Khashoggi headed a company called Triad Holding Company, which amongst other things built the Triad Centre 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. 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). 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 agents James H. Critchfield and Kim Roosevelt and US businessman Bebe Rebozo, a close associate of former US President Richard Nixon.

He was also 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 with Saudi and US backing. In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland, accused of concealing funds, and held for three months and then extradited to the United States where he was released on bail and subsequently acquitted. Since then he has kept a low profile, last resurfacing in 1992 to mediate for Col. Ghaddafi of Libya his investment in the United Kingdom and in the Principality of Monaco Metropole Hotels.

American University used to have a prominent building named the Khashoggi Center but after he defaulted on his donation pledge, the school removed his name from the building.

Khashoggi continues to live a quiet life in the Principality of Monaco, even though a warrant for his arrest was issued by an English court in the amount of £7 million. His "services" as a "facilitator" have never ceased throughout US administrations since Nixon, and lately, he met with Richard Perle, shortly before the American invasion of Iraq, in 2003.

[edit] Personal life

Khashoggi was well known for leading an extravagant and wild lifestyle that was legendary in its time. This was commemorated on rock band Queen's album The Miracle, on which the second song is titled "Khashoggi's Ship". The song mentions his super yacht "Nabila" built by Benetti and appearing in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. The yacht was later acquired by Donald Trump who added a 50 meter extension to the yacht and renamed it "Trump Princess" for Ivana Trump. After Donald Trump's divorce, the yacht was resold to another Saudi Businessman, a nephew of the king of Saudi Arabia, Al-Waleed bin Talal. It is now anchored in Cannes, in the south of France under the new name of "Kingdom 5 KR"

In addition to the yacht, he also had an opulent Jumbo jet with futuristic custom interior built around 1980. It is featured in the last issue of Nest Magazine.

In his 50th birthday party, held in Marbella, Spain in 1985, said to have cost millions of dollars, he entertained celebrity guests such as Sean Connery, Shirley Bassey, porn star Olinka Hardiman, Brooke Shields, Michael Caine, and George Hamilton IV.

[edit] Divorce from Soraya

In divorcing his wife, Soraya, in 1980, Khashoggi agreed to one of the largest divorce settlements on record; one figure quoted at £548.4m^[1], but reports vary wildly and part of the value of the settlement was said to have been tied to oil prices.

It later emerged that one of "his" daughters with ex-wife Soraya turned out, on DNA testing at age 18, to be the daughter of UK Tory Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken, soon to be disgraced for his role in accepting a gift from another arms dealer, Mohammed Said Ayas, a Lebanese and a close associate of Prince Muhammad bin Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In his libel suit against the Guardian newspaper, Aitken perjured himself over this gift of accommodation at the Paris Ritz and went to jail.

[edit] Association with Heather Mills

In 2006, he was named in the News Of The World as a client of Heather Mills McCartney when she allegedly worked as an escort. As corroboration, News of the World provided an affidavit^[2]from escort Denis Hewitt, who said she worked with Mills in the service of "Saudi royalty" (not naming Khashoggi specifically), and that Mills boasted of services rendered to members of the Maktoum family of Dubai, earning up to £10,000 in a single night. ^[3]. News of the World also produced a man named Abdul Khoury, who stated he was Khashoggi's personal secretary from 1977 to 2005 and had day-to-day knowledge of Khashoggi's business dealings and personal affairs. Khoury affirmed the veracity of reports of Mills's providing erotic services to Khashoggi, and in unequivocal detail.

The Daily Mail further produced accounts of other friends of Mills's affirming that she had worked as an escort on other occasions,^[4] and a sworn affidavit from a bagman who claimed he had handed over wads of cash to Mills after rendering services to her client.^[5]

These accusations have never been tested in a court of law; nor have Khashoggi or Mills (as of early 2007) initiated libel proceedings against Khoury, the News of the World or any media outlets carrying the story (despite the relatively favorable legal climate that exists in the UK for doing such.) Through her lawyers, Mills has denied ever having been a sex worker, says the accusations come from unreliable persons and are timed to cause maximum hurt.

[edit] Trivia

Army of Lovers band featured Khashoggi in its song La Plage De Saint Tropez with the following line: "We met Khashoggi with a gun"
Harold Robbins´novel The Pirate (1974) is supposed to be inspired by the life and lifestyle of Khashoggi