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G.W. Bush and bin Laden's brother were business partners
by Peter Allen, London Daily Mail
September 24, 2001
Salem bin Laden, one of 57 children their father Mohammed sired with his 12 wives, and Bush were founders of the Arbusto Energy oil company in Texas.
He died in a plane crash in 1988 -- like his father -- but not before the Arbusto Energy Oil Company, founded in 1978, had become hugely successful.
LONDON -- Osama bin Laden's older brother Salem, once head of the wealthy Saudi family clan, was a former business associate of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Salem bin Laden, one of 57 children their father Mohammed sired with his 12 wives, and Bush were founders of the Arbusto Energy oil company in Texas.
He died in a plane crash in 1988 -- like his father -- but not before the Arbusto Energy Oil Company, founded in 1978, had become hugely successful.
As the world knows, to its cost, Osama went on to embrace Islamic fundamentalism and 30 years later is the world's most wanted man. He is prime suspect in the murder of nearly 7,000 in the worst ever terrorist atrocities in the U.S.
The bin Laden brothers inherited a fortune from their construction magnate father. He left millions to each of his many, many children after dying in an air crash in 1968.
Salem put a large part of his money into business ventures, including Arbusto Energy. At the time, Bush was not long out of Harvard Business School.
Salem watched it grow until his death in a ultra-light plane crash in Texas in 1988. As he built his business empire, Salem Bin Laden had an intriguing relationship with the president-to-be.
In 1978, he appointed James Bath, a close friend of Bush who served with him in the Air National Guard, as his representative in Houston, Texas. It was in that year that Bath invested $70,000 in Bush's company, Arbusto. It was never revealed whether he was investing his own money or Salem's.
The same year, Bath bought Houston Gulf Airport on behalf of the Saudi Arabian multi-millionaire.
Three years ago, Bush said the $70,000 investment in Arbusto was the only financial dealing he had with Bath.
Last night, a White House spokesman was unavailable for comment.
Salem was married to Caroline Carey, now 35, a Briton half his age who has never spoken about her brother-in-law Osama.
He was disowned by the rest of his family in 1991, when he was expelled from Saudi Arabia for his anti-government activities.
A family friend said: "Salem was the head of the bin Laden family as the oldest of all the brothers and sisters. He was a man with a powerful presence."
Yesterday, FBI agents swooped on a Boston suburb where around 20 of the wealthy relatives of bin Laden live. They questioned them at a condominium complex in Charlestown.
Bin Laden's younger brother Mohammed, said to have moved back to Saudi Arabia with his wife and children several years ago, owns a 10-bedroom mansion in nearby Wayland.
Another younger brother, Abdullah, is a 1994 graduate of Harvard Law School. The family has given it $5 million in endowments to research Islamic law.
The FBI in Boston has long been aware of bin Laden's extended family and began monitoring their activities after the 1998 terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.
The bin Ladens still run one of the biggest construction companies in the world.
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