By Anna Moloney
Prince Charles was given a £1m donation for his charity from Osama bin Laden’s half-brothers, Bakr and Shafiq bin Laden, according to reports.
The Sunday Times has reported that the Prince of Wales allegedly had a private meeting with Bakr at Clarence House in London in October 2013, two years after Osama bin Laden was shot dead in Pakistan for acts of terrorism.
Clarence House has strongly disputed the claims, saying the decision to accept the donation was taken solely trustees of the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF).
Sir Ian Cheshire, the charity’s chairman, reportedly said the donation from the sheikh was carefully considered and that “due diligence was conducted, with information sought from a wide range of sources, including government.
“Any attempt to suggest otherwise is misleading and inaccurate,” he added.
The newspaper has also claimed that a source close to the charity said that the trustees concluded that the actions of one bin Laden family member should not tarnish the whole family.
Bakr and Shafiq, who are related to Osama bin laden through their father Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Yemeni-born billionaire, have never reported to have sponsored or been involved in acts of terrorism.
This latest revelation comes just a month after Prince Charles was reported to have received around €3m in cash from former Qatari PM, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani.
The Sunday Times claimed that cash was handed to the Prince of Wales on separate occasions, including a private one-on-one meeting at Clarence House in 2015.
Each payment was deposited into the PWCF accounts and there is nothing to suggestion they were illegal.
Clarence House told the Sunday Times that the money was “passed immediately to one of the prince’s charities who carried out the appropriate covenants and assured all the correct processes were followed”.
Last week, the Charity Commission closed its investigation on the case.
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