Mohammed al-Khilewi

Mohammed al-Khilewi, the first secretary at the Saudi mission to the United Nations, defects and seeks political asylum in the US. He brings with him 14,000 internal government documents depicting the Saudi royal family’s corruption, human-rights abuses, and financial support for Islamic militants. He meets with two FBI agents and an assistant US attorney. “We gave them a sampling of the documents and put them on the table,” says his lawyer, “but the agents refused to accept them.” [New Yorker, 10/16/2001] The documents include “details of the $7 billion the Saudis gave to [Iraq leader] Saddam Hussein for his nuclear program—the first attempt to build an Islamic Bomb.” However, FBI agents are “ordered not to accept evidence of Saudi criminal activity, even on US soil.” [Palast, 2002, pp. 101] The documents also reveal that Saudi Arabia has been funding Pakistan’s secret nuclear weapons program since the 1970s. Furthermore, they show that Pakistan in return has pledged to defend Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons if it faces a nuclear attack. While US officials do not formally accept the documents apparently the US learns of their content, because author Joe Trento will later claim that the CIA launches a high-level investigation in response to what they revealed. However Trento will add that the outcome of the investigation is unknown. [Trento, 2005, pp. 326]