The al-Qaeda terrorist network laundered at least 900 million dollars through two Zagreb banks in the early 1990s to finance Bosnian Muslims in the 1992-1995 civil war, but also various terrorist activities, Zagreb weekly Nacional alleged in a report Tuesday. The paper sources its story to the secret testimony of an unnamed Croatian citizen, who testified as a protected witness in New York trial of Yemen Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moyad, recently sentenced to 75 years for financing al-Qaeda, Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organisations. Nacional said that Moyad had set up the High Saudi Committee (HSC) in Zagreb in the early 1990s as a humanitarian organization, but it was actually financing the Bosnian Muslim war effort and Islamic terrorist activities.Until 1993 between 800 and 900 million dollars were deposited in cash in HSC accounts in Zagrebacka and Ljubljanska banka, and were later transferred to Bosnia, the paper said. Only ten per cent of the money was used for humanitarian activities and to help refugees, it claimed, while the rest was spent on financing Bosnian Muslim army and for terrorist activities. The paper said that Croatian intelligence sources had confirmed the story, but decided to keep it secret so as not to hamper Croatiaâs efforts to join the European Union. However, the Croatian authorities cooperated with the US judiciary and provided a protected witness in the trial of Al-Moyad, Nacional said.
HSC was practically expelled from Croatia in the mid-1990s when its true activities were discovered, but NATO investigators later discovered in its computers in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo maps and details of the targets hit by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, âNacionalâ said.