OSAMA'S BANK ACCOUNT.(The Talk of the Town)

In the federal courthouse in Manhattan, on Foley Square, a pyre of legal briefs is accumulating in the chambers of Judge Richard Casey, who has been assigned to make sense of a large number of lawsuits consolidated as "In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001." Family members of those killed have sued individuals, banks, and corporations that allegedly provided support to Al Qaeda as it grew, thus entering the foggy precincts of terrorist finance, where facts are elusive and every accused has a story of extenuating circumstance. Not long ago, there arrived at the courthouse, as an exhibit, an unusually complete set of bank records--the records for Account No. CO-565,167.0, at the former Swiss Bank Corporation, now UBS, which describes itself as the world's largest wealth manager.

Yeslam and Omar bin Laden submitted the records in an effort to prove that they have no legally culpable ties to their notorious half brother Osama; their arguments are pending before Judge Casey. It is perhaps notable, given the exaggerated claims made by the Bush Administration about collaboration between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, that the account was created because of the bin Laden family's concern about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, on August 2, 1990. Many Saudis worried that Saddam might take over the kingdom's oil fields and depose the royal family. The bin Laden fortune originated with Mohammed bin Laden, a government-connected contractor, who died in 1967. After the invasion, Mohammed's sons liquidated one of the family's foundations and set up Swiss bank accounts to benefit his fifty-three surviving children. Osama was living in Saudi Arabia at the time, having spent much of the nineteen-eighties involved in the war in Afghanistan. He was then a shareholder in two family firms; when the Swiss-bank-account plan was conceived, it was natural for him to be included.

On August 17, 1990, in Geneva, Omar and another of Osama's half brothers, Haider bin Laden, signed documents to open Account No. CO-565,167.0. They declared, in writing, "as holder of the account" that "the beneficial owner of the assets to be deposited with the bank is Mr. Osama M. Binladin." No other owner was named. They also signed a document to provide power of attorney to Yeslam and "Sheikh Osama Mohamed Binladin." This included the power to "lodge or withdraw funds in any manner whatsoever." On August 20th, the account received a deposit of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

During the next fourteen months, the money sat still, earning more than thirty thousand dollars in interest. Back in Saudi Arabia, however, Osama's life was in some turmoil. He proposed to the Saudi royal family that he lead his followers from the Afghan war on a jihad against Saddam Hussein's troops, ...