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July 27, 2006

France: "Devout Muslim" Saudi Prince On Drugs Smuggling Charges

On May 16,1999, a Skyways Boeing 727 landed at Le Bourget airport outside Paris. On board the plane was a consignment of 2 tons of cocaine (1,980 kilograms or 4,400 pounds), which had come from Caracas, Venezuela, with a brief detour to Saudi Arabia en route. Placed in 100 Samsonite suitcases, the cocaine had been transported in two waiting vans to a suburb of Paris.

The airplane was owned by a member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Nayef Bin Sultan Bin Fawwaz al-Shaalan (also spelled al-Chaalan). His elder brother is married to a daughter of King Abdullah, but he himself is not in line to the throne.

Today, Agence France Presse via Expatica reports that the trial in France of the Saudi Prince, which should have started yesterday, has been postponed to November 29.

Al-Shaalan should have appeared at a court hearing in June, but failed to appear because of "vital professional reasons". As a result, an international arrest warrant was made out for the prince's arrest.

The trial which would have started yesterday was to be held with the prince (pictured) still in absentia.

The case of the Prince, and how he was able to use his "diplomatic immunity" to escape justice in America and France is staggering. He was named in an indictment from the US DEA on June 17, 2002. Al-Shaalan had been living in south Florida from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.

Also named in the US indictment from a Miami court were his former girlfriend, 44-year old Doris Mangeri Salazar, Ivan Lopez Vanegas and Jose Maria Clemente. These and Al-Shaalan were all named as conspirators to possess with the intent to distribute cocaine.

Following the shipment of the cocaine to Paris, about 190 kilograms of the substance were recovered by French authorities later in May. The following month, an additional 804 kilograms of the cocaine were retrieved from a French suburb.

The BBC reported on 18 July 2002 that the whereabouts of the prince was unknown to the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and that it was unclear if he can be prosecuted when found, because of his "diplomatic immunity".

Doris Salazar is said to have introduced the prince to drug dealers in September 1998. A copy of a painting by Spanish master Goya, El Atraco a La Diligencia, painted in 1793, was taken from her home, worth $1 million dollars, as well as sculptures and other paintings including Buste de Jeune Femme by Tsuguharu Foujita, painted in 1926 and three works by Colombian artist Fernando Botero. It was thought that the artworks were to have been used as part payments for the drugs deal.

According to an article originally from the Miami Herald of July 17, 2002, a Barcelona art dealer claimed that the paintings were the personal property of Salazar. When DEA agents searched her oral Gables home in July 2002, she was found hiding in the closet.

In August 2005, Doris Mangeri Salazar and Ivan Lopez Vanegas were sentenced by Judge Jose E. Martinez to jail terms. Doris Salazar received a 292 month sentence and Vanegas received 280 months. They were additionally ordered to pay $25,000 in fines for the conspiracy. They had been convicted in May 2005.

According to the Saint Petersburg Times, there had been an earlier drug charge leveled against Prince Nayef Bin Sultan Bin Fawwaz al-Shaalan from Mississippi.

One of two Colombian defendants who had agreed to plea bargain and give State's evidence at the trial of Salazar, Juan Gabriel Usuga, had been asked about the Saudi's prince and his motives. One-eyed Usuga said that he had doubts about the prince's reasons for becoming involved in drug smuggling. He said he had asked al-Shaalan why, and the prince had said: "The world is already doomed." Al-Shaalan had also said he had been "authorized by God to sell drugs."

Usuga said he wanted to know the real reason, and the prince had replied: "Someday you'll know."

The prince is said to neither drink, smoke, nor take drugs, and is said to be a "devout Muslim".

In May 2004 a book written by a former official of the French Ministry of the Interior, Fabrice Monti was published, called Le Coke Saudienne: au coeur d'une affaire d'Etat (Saudi Coke: at the heart of an affair of State). The book apparently alleges that the Saudi government threatened to pull out of a contract for the French multinational company Thales to build a radar security system for the Arab kingdom, worth 7 billion euros ($8.89 million) if the French pursued the case against the prince.

The book also alleges that the prince wanted to use the sales of the cocaine (which would have given him $30 million) to subsidise funding for Wahabiite fundamentalism. The book states that the prince traveled to Europe in July 2002 in the company of the late King Fahd, without being bothered by police or intelligence agents. He is believed now to be in Saudi Arabia.

The other individual named in the US indictment from 2002 was Jose Maria Clemente. He was thought at that time to be in Switzerland. He was an art collector. According to AFP, he is now to face charges during the French trial of the Saudi prince.

Clemente was arrested in Spain in December 2002, and he is further assumed to be a money-launderer by prosecutors in Switzerland.

In an earlier stage of the trial in France, five people were found guilty at a court in Bobigny, a suburb of Paris. Didier Dubreucq was found guilty of handling the drugs when they arrived in the Skyways 727 jet. (Skyways is a company owned by the Saudi royal family). Dubreucq was sentenced to eight and a half years' jail.

Gustavo Guarin, a chemical engineer who is a French national of Colombian origin, was sentenced to four and a half years' jail. Five others who were found guilty of stocking the drug once it had been delivered to he suburban safe house were collectively fined 12.3 million Euros ($15.6 million), a sum which was given to the French customs agency.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 27, 2006 6:52 PM

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