Adnan Khashoggi

Adnan Khashoggi (Arabic: عدنان خاشقجي‎‎, Turkish: Adnan Kaşıkçı; 25 July 1935 – 6 June 2017) was a Saudi Arabian billionaire international businessman, best known for his involvement in arms dealing. He is estimated to have had a peak net worth of around US$4 billion in the early 1980s.

Spouses

Soraya Khashoggi
Lamia Khashoggi

Children

1 daughter, Nabila, and 4 sons, Mohammed, Khalid, Hussein, and Omar, with Soraya
1 son, Ali, with Lamia

Parent

Muhammad Khashoggi

Family and education

Khashoggi was born in Mecca, the son of Muhammad Khashoggi, who was King Abdul Aziz Al Saud's personal doctor. His family is of Turkish origin. Adnan Khashoggi's sister was author Samira Khashoggi Fayed who married businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed and was the mother of Dodi Fayed. Another sister, Soheir Khashoggi, is a well-known Arab writer (Mirage, Nadia's Song, Mosaic).

Khashoggi was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, and the American universities California State University, Chico, Ohio State, and Stanford. Khashoggi left his studies in order to seek his fortune in business.

Business career

Khashoggi headed a company called Triad Holding Company, which among other things built the Triad Center in Salt Lake City, which later went bankrupt. He was famed as an arms dealer, brokering deals between US firms and the Saudi government, most actively in the 1960s and 1970s. In the documentary series The Mayfair Set, Saudi author Said Aburish states that one of Adnan's first weapons deals was providing David Stirling with weapons for a covert mission in Yemen during the Aden Emergency in 1963. Among his overseas clients were defense contractors Lockheed Corporation (now Lockheed Martin Corporation), Raytheon, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and Northrop Corporation (which have now merged into Northrop Grumman).

Between 1970 and 1975, Lockheed paid Khashoggi $106 million in commissions. His commissions started at 2.5% and eventually rose to as much as 15%. Khashoggi "became for all practical purposes a marketing arm of Lockheed. Adnan would provide not only an entrée but strategy, constant advice, and analysis", according to Max Helzel, then vice president of Lockheed's international marketing.

A shrewd businessman, he established companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to handle his commissions as well as developing contacts with notables such as CIA officers James H. Critchfield and Kim Roosevelt and United States businessman Bebe Rebozo, a close associate of U.S. President Richard Nixon. His yacht, the Nabila, was the largest in the world at the time and was used in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. After Khashoggi ran into financial problems he sold the yacht to the Sultan of Brunei, who in turn sold it to Donald Trump for $29 million, who sold it for $20 million to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal as part of a deal to keep his Taj Mahal casino out of bankruptcy.

Iran–Contra affair

Khashoggi was implicated in the Iran–Contra affair as a key middleman in the arms-for-hostages exchange along with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and, in a complex series of events, was found to have borrowed money for these arms purchases from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) with Saudi and United States backing. His role in the affair created a related controversy when Khashoggi donated millions to the American University in Washington, DC to build a sports arena which would bear his name. Khashoggi was a member of the university's board of trustees from 1983 until his indictment on fraud and other charges in May, 1989.

Imelda Marcos affair

In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland, accused of concealing funds, and held for three months. Khashoggi stopped fighting extradition when the U.S. prosecutors reduced the charges to obstruction of justice and mail fraud and dropped the more serious charges of racketeering and conspiracy. In 1990, a United States federal jury in Manhattan acquitted Khashoggi and Imelda Marcos, widow of the exiled Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, of racketeering and fraud.

After Dark

In 1991 Khashoggi appeared on the Channel 4 live discussion programme After Dark, alongside among others Edward Heath and Lord Weidenfeld.

Genesis Intermedia

Khashoggi, along with Ramy El-Batrawi, was the principal financier behind Genesis Intermedia, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: GENI), a publicly traded Internet company based in the US. In 2006, El-Batrawi and Kashoggi were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for securities fraud. The case was settled in 2008; both men did not admit or deny the allegations.

Seymour Hersh report

In January 2003, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker magazine that former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle had a meeting with Khashoggi in Marseille in order to use him as a conduit between Trireme Partners, a private venture capital company of which he was one of three principals, and the Saudi government. At the time, Perle was chair of the Defense Policy Board, a Defense Department advisory group, which provided him with access to classified information and a position to influence defense policy.

Khashoggi told Hersh that Perle talked to him about the economic costs regarding a proposed invasion of Iraq. "'If there is no war,' he told me, 'why is there a need for security? If there is a war, of course, billions of dollars will have to be spent.'"

Personal life

In the 1960s, Khashoggi married 20-year-old Englishwoman Sandra Daly (Sandra Patricia Jarvis-Daly) who converted to Islam and took the name Soraya Khashoggi. They raised one daughter (Nabila, who attended Millfield School in England and whose son is the pianist and composer Thorvald Spartan von Daggenhurst) and four sons together (Mohammed, Khalid, Hussein, and Omar). Soraya gave birth to another daughter, Petrina Khashoggi, a daughter born seven years after her divorce from Khashoggi, who is no relation to him.

His second wife, the Italian Laura Biancolini, also converted to Islam and changed her name to Lamia Khashoggi. She was seventeen when she met Adnan and gave him another son, Ali, in 1980.

In the 1980s, the Khashoggi family occupied one of the largest villa estates in Marbella, Spain, called Baraka, hosting lavish parties usually arranged by Robert Young, a local club owner. Guests at these parties included film stars, pop celebrities and politicians including Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In 1985, celebrity reporter Robin Leach reported Khashoggi threw a five-day birthday party in Vienna for his eldest son, and in his heyday, Khashoggi spent $250,000 a day to maintain his lifestyle.

Khashoggi also owned Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in Laikipia, Kenya. His house has since been converted into a hotel which is run by Serena Hotels.

Khashoggi died peacefully on 6 June 2017 while being treated for Parkinson’s disease at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. He was 81.

In popular culture

Films

• Where I Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story
• The One Percent

Books

• The Richest Man in the World: The Story of Adnan Khashoggi
• The One-Page Proposal: How to Get Your Business Pitch onto One Persuasive Page ISBN 9780062084125
• The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

Music

• "Khashoggi's Ship", a song by Queen from the album The Miracle (1989)
• "I am", a song by Army of Lovers (1993)