According to the Sunday Times, Osama Bin Laden’s family gave Prince Charles £1 million as payment.
In 2013, two years after the al-Qaeda commander was murdered, Prince Charles took the funds from two of Osama Bin Laden’s half-brothers, the report explained.
The donation was reportedly given to The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF).
PWCF had convinced Clarence House that “thorough due diligence” had been done. Also, trustees were in charge of deciding whether or not to accept the funds, according to Clarence House.
Any attempt to portray it differently is untrue, Clarence House told the media, adding that it had disputed several statements made in the news article.
Bin Laden’s family disowned him in 1994. However, there is no evidence that his half-brothers were involved in his actions.
Bakr Bin Laden, the patriarch of the affluent Saudi family, and Bakr’s brother Shafiq allegedly paid the money to the Prince of Wales after a meeting with Bakr at Clarence House.
According to the Sunday Times, the heir to the throne accepted the funds against advice from officials at Clarence House and PWCF.
PWCF’s chairman Sir Ian Cheshire claimed that the 2013 donation was carefully assessed back then by the five trustees, he said in a statement to the newspaper.
Due diligence was carried out, and information was gathered from a variety of sources, including the government, Sir Ian went on.
“The decision to accept the donation was taken wholly by the trustees. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is misleading and inaccurate,” Sir Ian added.
PWCF funding are given to non-profit organizations with UK registrations to carry out projects in the UK, Commonwealth, and other foreign countries.
Osama Bin Laden appeared on the United States’ Most Wanted List for more than a decade. He is thought to have given the orders for the terror attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
The attacks resulted in the deaths of over 3,000 people and made September 11 one of the most tragic days in the country’s history. In 2011, US forces murdered him.
“Though the name [Bin Laden] has very unhappy history, the sins of the father should not be visited on the rest of the family, which is an eminent one in the region,” a PWCF told the media, adding that the donation had been cleared by the Foreign Office.
