Author: Press Association
Publication: The Sydney Morning
Herald
Date: November 8, 2001
London - United States special agents
were told to back off the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals soon after
George Bush became president, although that has all changed since September
11, a BBC television program has claimed
BBC2's Newsnight also said on Tuesday
night that it had secret documents from the FBI investigation into the
terrorist attacks which showed that despite claims that Osama bin Laden
is the black sheep of the family, at least two other US-based members are
suspected of links with a possible terrorist organisation.
The program said it had obtained
evidence that the FBI was on the trail of bin Laden family members living
in the US before September 11. A document showed that special agents from
the Washington field office were investigating Abdullah, a close relative
of Osama, because of his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim
Youth (WAMY), a suspected terrorist organisation, it said.
The US Treasury has not frozen WAMY's
assets, and insists it is a charity, the program said, yet Pakistan had
expelled WAMY "operatives" and India claimed WAMY was funding an organisation
linked to bombings in Kashmir. The FBI did look into WAMY but for some
reason agents were pulled off the trail, it said.
The former head of the American
visa bureau in Jeddah from 1987 to 1989, Michael Springman, told the program:
"In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department
officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants - people who had no
ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained there.
I complained here in Washington ... and I was ignored." He added: "What
I was doing was giving visas to terrorists, recruited by the CIA and Osama
bin Laden to come back to the United States for training to be used in
the war in Afghanistan against the then Soviets."
The program said it had been told
by a highly placed source in a US intelligence agency there had always
been "constraints" on investigating Saudis, but under President George
Bush it had become much worse.
After the elections, the intelligence
agencies were told to "back off" from investigating the bin Laden family
and the Saudi royals. The policy was reversed after September 11, it reported.