The Bin Ladens

between Bath and White, lodged in Harris County, Texas, and in Houston’s federal court. “a lot of fun”: Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, September 28, 1999, citing a 1990 interview with the Houston Post. The best published accounts of this period in Texas business and politics are Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud; Phillips, American Dynasty, and Beaty and Gwynne, The Outlaw Bank.

10. Fokker sale: Interview with Gerald Auerbach, April 7, 2005. “He talked”: Interview with Armitage, op. cit. “loved…that kind of stuff”: Interview with Charles Schwartz, May 12, 2005. Bath declined several requests for an interview.

11. MBO Investments, trust agreement: Web site of the Texas secretary of state, examined and typed, September 9, 2005. Revolving line of credit: Transcript of White’s interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program The Fifth Estate. White confirmed for the author the accuracy of the transcript and its assertions. White claims to have a large archive of confidential documents about Bath’s business activities, including deposition testimony that Bath provided in their civil case, but he declined to make these documents available. Some excerpts of Bath’s deposition testimony are in public court files, however.

12. White transcript, op. cit. Skyway’s history is described in documents and affidavits filed by White and Bath in several lawsuits, but these documents do not make fully clear which Saudis owned the company. White has suggested that Salem Bin Laden may have an interest in Skyway. The Wall Street Journal, September 28, 1999, reported that Khalid Bin Mahfouz owned Skyway. Its assertion relied partially on a confidential court document originally cited by the Houston Chronicle in a published report. Unger, House of Bush, p. 34, also reports that Bin Mahfouz owned Skyway; Unger interviewed Bath, although it is not clear whether Bath was the source of his account.

13. Binco: Texas secretary of state, op. cit. Houston Gulf never generated significant profits: Interview with Schwartz, op. cit.

14. Saudi Bank of Paris: Salem Bin Laden entry in Who’s Who in Saudi Arabia, 1976–77 edition, and 1978–79 edition, both of which identify Salem as a “founding member” of the bank. Main Bank: Unger, House of Bush, p. 34.

15. Interview with Sheryl Johnson-Todd, former attorney for Sandra Bath, September 8, 2005. Interview with a pilot who traveled with Bath during this period and who asked not to be identified.

16. Timothy J. Finn, a Bin Laden attorney, said that Ghalib earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, but a school spokesman was unable to locate the records of his attendance. Several people close to the family recalled that Ghalib studied at Berkeley, however. USF records: Telephone interviews with Gary McDonald, March 15 and 16, 2006. USC records: E-mail communication from James Grant, March 1, 2006.

17. Yeslam’s time in Europe, his anxiety attacks: Affidavits and pleadings from Swiss divorce proceedings, Canton of Geneva, translated and filed in Carmen Bin Ladin v. Yeslam and Ibrahim Bin Ladin, Los Angeles County Superior Court, BC212648. “Carmen was…ambitions for him”: Telephone interview with Mary Martha Barkley, August 27, 2004.

18. Court filings: Ibid. Pontiac Firebird: Bin Laden, Inside the Kingdom, p. 47. Khalif: Interview with Barkley, ibid.

19. Caesars Palace: Interview with Carmen Bin Laden, August 6, 2004. Blackjack scene: Interview with Gerald Auerbach, op. cit.

20. “No sin…punish him”: From Osama Bin Laden’s statement of December 16, 2004, as translated in Lawrence (ed.), Messages to the World, p. 262.

21. “You never knew…embedded in them”: Interview with Carmen Bin Laden, op. cit.

22. Khalil and alcohol: Interview with a businessman who asked not to be identified. Mahrouz: Interview with a different business partner who also asked not to be identified. “kind of a party animal”: Interview with Armitage, op. cit. Carmen Bin Laden recalled that Mahrouz’s French wife also became very religious. She had a daughter from a previous marriage, Bin Laden said, for whom Mahrouz arranged a marriage to a Saudi man when the girl was quite young.

23. Theroux, Sandstorms, p. 72.

24. Ibrahim Bin Laden married Christine Hartunian, an American. As a young man, Khaled married a Danish woman. In addition to these examples, Khalil married a Brazilian woman, Isabel Bayma.

25. “It was just a really hard…always ringing” and “the family problems”: Interview with Gail Freeman, op. cit. “You have a wife…like a diplomat”: Interview with Peter Blum, May 5, 2006.

26. Hunnewell quotation from Surtees, Pa Bell, p. 237. Several pilots interviewed by the author also described this incident; it became part of the indoctrination new pilots received.

27. “He always said…wouldn’t marry him”: Interview with Jack Hinson, May 10, 2005.

28. All quotations: Interview with Gail Freeman, op. cit.

29. “I really don’t…by herself”: Interview with Sowell, op. cit.

30. “She’s gone off…She crashed!”: Interview with Freeman, op. cit. “Over my dead body…possibility”: Interview with Sowell, op. cit.

31. All quotations: Interviews with Freeman and Sowell, op. cit.

14. THE CONVERT’S ZEAL

1. Transcript of Khaled Batarfi interview, published in Al-Madinah, late 2001, translated and supplied to the author by Batarfi.

2. Interview with a friend of Salem Bin Laden who asked not to be further identified.

3. “perfectly integrated”: Bin Laden, Inside the Kingdom, p. 70. Cars, desert weekends: Interview with Khaled Batarfi, February 19, 2005. Osama’s friend Jamal Khalifa, in Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p. 17, recalled Osama as “a very good driver; together we go fast, mostly the two of us, so that made us very close.” “favorite hobby”: Transcript of Bin Laden’s December 1998 interview with Al-Jazeera, in Lawrence (ed.), Messages to the World, p. 71. Yellow boots and Swiss Army watch: Walid Al-Khatib, interview in Sunday Times (London), January 6, 2002.

4. “I remember…bloody signature”: Interview with Rupert Armitage, September 19, 2006. “just another kid brother”: Interview with Bengt Johansson, October 3, 2006.

5. “interaction” began in 1973: Biography supplied by Bin Laden or his aides to Nida’ul Islam, a magazine based in Australia that published an interview with Bin Laden in late 1996, in Messages to the World, op. cit., p. 31. “As is known…wage jihad”: 1998 Al-Jazeera transcript in Messages to the World, op. cit., p. 91.

6. Transcript of interview with Nasir Al-Bahri, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, March 20, 2005, FBIS translation.

7. “minor figure”: Inside the Kingdom, op. cit., p. 70. “more literal”: The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p. 21. Soccer shorts: Interview with Batarfi, op. cit. “He often…about religion”: Interview published in Al-Qabas (Kuwait), November 14, 2001. Translated for the author by Hatem Y. Mohammed.

8. “Every Muslim…for Americans”: 1998 Al-Jazeera transcript in Messages to the World, op. cit., p. 87. “incapable…past decades”: Statement of January 4, 2004, ibid., p. 229.

9. Ibid., p. 126.

10. Al-Din, Bin Laden, pp. 79–82.

11. Interview with Batarfi, op. cit. Al-Qabas interviews with Syrian relatives, op. cit.

12. Interview with Batarfi, op. cit. Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p. 16. Also, interview with Khashoggi, op. cit.; The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p. 21; Inside the Kingdom, op. cit., pp. 70–71.

13. Class photo: A schoolmate of Osama’s showed a copy of the class picture to the author. Jamal Khalifa,