Yet Another Saudi Connection

Did illegal support go to Angolan rebels as well as contras?

Sam Bamieh, the owner of an export business in San Mateo, Calif., is more familiar than he would like to be with the Saudi royal household. A naturalized American who was born and raised in Palestine and had long maintained close ties to the royal family, Bamieh, 48, says that aides of King Fahd held him hostage for four months in Saudi Arabia last year. As Bamieh tells it, his captors threatened to behead him unless he stopped claiming that a member of the family owed him $1.4 million from a business deal gone sour.

Bamieh, understandably, complied with the request....

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