Britain’s Prince Charles is underneath renewed stress after a newspaper reported Sunday that one in every of his charities accepted a 1 million pound (€1.21 million, $1.19 million) donation from the household of Osama bin Laden.
Non-profit organizations arrange by the inheritor to the UK throne have been rocked by allegations of legal wrongdoing linked to presents by different rich businessmen.
What are the brand new revelations?
The Sunday Times stated the Prince of Wales’ Charitable Fund was given the cash in 2013 by Bakr bin Laden, patriarch of the big and rich Saudi household, and his brother Shafiq.
Both are half-brothers of the previous al-Qaida chief and mastermind of the September 11 assaults on the United States, who was killed by US particular forces in Pakistan in 2011.
The paper reported that Charles met with Bakr in London in 2013, the place he agreed to simply accept the reward. Citing unnamed sources, it stated advisers had urged the inheritor to the throne to not take the donation.
Charles’ workplace, Clarence House, confirmed the donation however stated the choice to simply accept the cash was taken by the charity’s trustees, not the prince.
It added that “thorough due diligence was undertaken in accepting this donation.”
The fund’s chairman, Ian Cheshire, additionally stated the donation was agreed “wholly” by the 5 trustees on the time, and “any attempt to suggest otherwise is misleading and inaccurate.”
There isn’t any suggestion of any wrongdoing by the Saudi relations.
Prince’s charities hit by allegations of impropriety
However, the revelation is prone to additional injury the popularity of the 73-year-old prince’s charitable organizations following a number of comparable circumstances.
Last month, the Sunday Times reported Charles had accepted baggage of money containing $3 million from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the previous prime minister of Qatar.
Last yr, British media alleged that folks related to one other of Charles’ charities, the Prince’s Foundation, provided to assist a Saudi billionaire safe honors and citizenship in return for donations.
The man, tycoon Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, had donated massive sums to restoration tasks of specific curiosity to Charles.
The head of the inspiration, Michael Fawcett, resigned final yr after an inside investigation into the allegations.
Investigations launched
The charity regulator for England and Wales, which oversees the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund, stated in November it had opened a probe into the Mahfouz affair.
A police investigation can be at present underway.
The regulator for Scotland, liable for the oversight of the Prince’s Foundation, launched its personal probe into reviews that the inspiration accepted money from a Russian banker beforehand convicted of cash laundering.
