19 January,2009 01:30 PM IST | | PTI
A Saudi businessman plans to file a lawsuit against the Bush administration claiming that the outgoing US government had wrongfully accused him of financing terrorism, leading to the freezing of his assets.
Yasin Al-Qadi, 53, decided to move the court after his assets in the US were seized and American investors were banned from dealing with him, a Saudi Gazette report has said.
"I want everyone to know that I have never ever supported terrorism. All the accusations against me were false and in violation of the constitutional provisions of the US since there has never been any proof against me," Al-Qadi told the newspaper.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the US Treasury Department alleged that the Muwafaq Foundation, once headed by Al-Qadi, "has been identified as an Al-Qaeda front funded by wealthy Saudi businessmen."
The US Treasury Department, according to Al-Qadi, was "ordered" to draw up a list of persons involved in supporting Al-Qaeda and was put under "political pressure" by the Bush administration to include as many names as possible.
Under the guidance of General Counsel David Aufhauser, the US Treasury Department had drawn up a long list of people without having any substantial proof against some of them, just before Bush announced his war on terror, he said.
"The Bush administration used the list as justification for the UN to freeze his assets and to taint his reputation around the world," he added. "I was a victim of a financial Guantanamo at the hands of the unjust Bush administration with its baseless accusations," he stated.
He decided to defend himself in courts in Turkey and Europe, however, the European Court of Justice had cleared all his personal, business and charity activities of any terror-linked suspicions.
