Extended Interview With Louis Freeh

Now attorney to Prince Bandar

As the head of his own global consulting firm, Freeh Group International, Louis Freeh has been hired by Prince Bandar as his legal representative on issues surrounding the Al-Yamamah arms deal. Lowell Bergman interviewed Louis Freeh on March 19, 2009 about allegations -- that Freeh insists are untrue -- that his client received approximately $2 billion and a wide-body Airbus 340 from arms company BAE Systems as part of the massive arms contract. Freeh finally agreed to be interviewed just weeks before our airdate, following months of requests by FRONTLINE for interviews with both Freeh and Prince Bandar.

Freeh was interviewed for the FRONTLINE film Black Money, which details the allegations of bribery leveled at BAE Systems and the Prince. This video contains extended excerpts of Bergman's interview with Freeh -- the first time anyone has spoken publicly on behalf of Prince Bandar about these allegations. Throughout this interview, there are markers referring to the footnotes below, which provide added context and corrections.

FOOTNOTE 1: Flow of Money to Riggs Bank

When asked about what appears to be personal expenditure of Al-Yamamah money by Prince Bandar, Freeh says, "If His Majesty, the King of Saudi Arabia and the Minister of Defense and Aviation and the Minister of Oil and the Minister of Finance, if they all agree and are aware of what's being expended by whom, there can't be any foul ball called by the United States because we think they should be applying another governance method."

That is not the way the U.S. Department of Justice sees the situation. Although he would not comment on the BAE investigation, Mark Mendelsohn, the chief prosecutor for international bribery at the Department of Justice clarified U.S. anti-bribery law: "Under U.S. law, it's absolutely irrelevant whether a foreign government acknowledges awareness that one of its officials was being corrupted or even endorses or approves of the corruption. So long as the bribe payment is for a corrupt purpose and goes to personally benefit the foreign official and the other elements of the statute are satisfied we can and will bring a prosecution."...

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bribe/2009/04/louis-freeh-interview.html

Wiki: Riggs Bank

Riggs Bank was a Washington, D.C.-based commercial bank with branches located in the surrounding metropolitan area and offices around the world. For most of its history, it was the largest bank in the nation's capital. Riggs had been controlled by theAlbritton family since the 1980s, but they lost control after various corporate scandals and management problems. On May 16, 2005, the bank merged with PNC Financial Services...

...In the mid-1970s members of the Saudi royal family set up covert accounts at the Riggs Bank in Washington amounting to tens of millions of dollars; this money was used by the so-called "Safari Club" to run intelligence operations at a time when American intelligence was paralyzed by investigations in the aftermath of Watergate.[6]

A Saudi named Omar al-Bayoumi housed and opened bank accounts for two of the 9/11 hijackers. About two weeks after the assistance began, al-Bayoumi's wife began receiving monthly payments totaling tens of thousands of dollars from Princess Haifa bint Faisal, the wife of Saudi ambassador and Bush family confidant, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, through a Riggs bank account. [1] (Jonathan Bush, uncle of President George W. Bush, was an executive at Riggs Bank during this period.)...

...Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile, had been widely accused since 1973 of corruption, illegal arms sales, and torture. In 1994, Riggs officials invited Pinochet to open an account at Riggs Bank. Pinochet was arrested in 1998 in Britain for possible extradition to Spain, and his accounts were ordered frozen by court orders. A recentU.S. Senate report has revealed that Riggs executives helped Pinochet disguise millions of dollars. By using shell companies and hiding accounts from federal regulators, Riggs illegally allowed Pinochet to retain access to much of his fortune.[7]...

...In July 2004, the US Senate published an investigation into Riggs Bank, into which most of Equatorial Guinea's oil revenues were paid until recently. This showed that accounts based at the embassy to the United States of Equatorial Guinea were allowed to make large withdrawals without properly notifying federal authorities. At least $35 million were siphoned off by long-time dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, his family and senior officials of his regime. Simon Kareri, the Riggs employee in charge of the Equatorial Guinea and other accounts, stands accused of money-laundering in separate charges. As the account manager, it is alleged that he established a fake holding company in his wife's name, and diverted funds into this account....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riggs_Bank

Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International