Why is Yemen’s presidential family loaded up with millions of
dollars in D.C. real estate?
By Ken Silvestein
Shortly
after being named one of the three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize this month,
Yemeni activist Tawakkul Karman said that if embattled President Ali Abdullah
Saleh is driven from power, investigators should immediately begin searching
for assets held abroad by members of his government. The money
"plundered" by the regime, she said, should be "brought back to
the Yemeni people," according to an account on an opposition website.
If
Saleh is forced out -- he has held power for more than three decades -- the
asset hunters might want to begin their search in Washington, D.C. Real estate
records show that in 2007 a man named Ahmed Ali Saleh bought four condominiums
in a luxury building in Friendship Heights, right near one of the capital's
swankiest shopping areas. He paid $5.5 million -- in cash -- for the condos. He
also owns a property assessed at about $220,000 in Fairfax, Virginia, bought in
the 1990s.
Saleh
is a common name in Yemen, and the Yemeni embassy in Washington won't comment
on the matter, but substantial evidence indicates that the Ahmed Ali Saleh who
owns the condos is the eldest son and longtime heir apparent of President
Saleh. He also heads the elite Republican Guard, which has allegedly led many
of the attacks on the country's largely peaceful protesters at Change Square in
Sanaa.
Yemen,
the poorest country in the Arab world, erupted in revolt against the Saleh
family's rule in February, soon after the fall of Tunisia's Ben Ali. Tribal
fighters, young pro-democracy activists, and government security forces have
been vying for control ever since. In recent days, the capital has been gripped
by violence. International human rights groups say the government has killed at
least several hundred demonstrators since the uprising began; some estimates
are many times that.
The
unrest in Yemen was triggered in part by anger over the ruling family's
self-enrichment, of which the military has been a prime beneficiary. (In
addition to the Republican Guard, President Saleh's close relatives control
other key branches of the military and security establishment.) Yemen is rapidly
running out of oil, which underpins the economy, and other resources, which
makes the situation all the more explosive.
In
Washington, at least some members of the president's family live in posh style.
Among the four condos owned by Ahmed Ali Saleh, the most expensive unit, which
he bought for $1.7 million, is currently up for rent (furnished) for $7,500 per
month. That's more or less equivalent to what a typical Yemeni makes in seven
years. The rental listing describes the 2,019-square-foot unit as "LUXURIOUS
and SPECTACULAR," with two bedrooms, walk-in closets, two-and-a-half baths
(one with whirlpool), hardwood floors, and marble and granite trimmings. The
listing also boasts of the building's 24-hour front desk and fitness center, as
well as its location "steps from ... [the] best shopping in DC."
Indeed,
Saleh's condos are just around the corner from Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus,
and a multitude of high-end retailers at Mazza Gallerie shopping mall on
Wisconsin Avenue. "So perfect, you'll want to move in immediately!"
says the listing.
Frank
Goldstein, who headed the building's condo owners' association until earlier
this year, said that young Yemenis "in their 20s" lived in the condo
units and that he was told by his designated contact at the Yemeni embassy that
they were cousins and nephews of the president who were attending universities
in Washington. Legal records show that Khaled Saleh, which is the name of
another son of President Saleh, was living in one of the condos in 2009. A
public record database search found that one of President Saleh's grandsons has
lived at Ahmed Ali Saleh's Fairfax property. Khaled Saleh and at least two
other relatives of the president are currently on the embassy's payroll,
according to a document filed by the Yemeni government with the U.S. State
Department. (Ahmed Ali Saleh himself lived in Washington in the mid-1990s and
graduated from American University, one U.S. source told me. The university
confirmed that an Ahmed A. Saleh graduated in the 1990s, but would provide no
other information.)
Several
people connected with the building, including Goldstein, told me that they
never met the condo's owner -- but that the Yemeni embassy in Washington was
the contact point when issues arose. When I called the concierge service at the
building and said I wanted to get in touch with Ahmed Ali Saleh, the person I
spoke with said, "He doesn't live here. If I need anything I call the
embassy [of Yemen], and they get someone for me. If you want anything to do
with those units, you have to go through the embassy."
Daphne
Coates, who manages the units for Legum & Norman Realty, told me:
"I've never met him [the owner] or talked to him. I don't know where he
lives, here or in Yemen. When I need something I call the embassy, and they
find someone for me to talk to."
Goldstein
said he was told by his contact at the embassy that one of the president's
brothers owned the units. Yet Mohammed al-Basha, a public affairs officer at
Yemen's Washington embassy, said the president has no brother named Ahmed Ali
Saleh or any relative of that name other than his eldest son. "I don't
have answers to your questions," he said when I later asked him directly
if the condo owner was the president's son. He suggested I contact the press
secretary for Ahmed Ali Saleh in Yemen, who failed to reply to an email seeking
comment.
I
called the Yemeni embassy on Monday, Oct. 17, and told the receptionist I
wanted to speak to the person at the embassy who handled Ahmed Ali Saleh's
condos. She put me through to a woman who became indignant when I told her I
was seeking confirmation that the president's son owned the units. "So
you're asking questions that don't pertain to you," she said. "What
business is it of yours who owns the property?" When pressed, the woman,
who wouldn't give her name but said she worked with the ambassador, said she
would get back to me on the question of ownership. So far she hasn't. When I
asked her how else I might confirm ownership, she replied, "Try contacting
the government of Yemen and see how far that gets you."
I
spoke on backgroundwith four U.S. experts on Yemen who have many decades of
combined government and private experience in the country and intricate
knowledge of the ruling family. They all said that given the evidence --
including the obvious wealth of the properties' owner -- the president's son
almost had to be the proprietor. One termed it "virtually impossible"
that he was not, adding, "It is inconceivable that there is another Ahmed
Ali Saleh in Yemen who has $5 million to buy condos in Washington." Another
said that during his conversations with Yemeni diplomats, several had mentioned
that the president's son owned property in Washington.
A
New York Times story last year said there was a sense in Yemen that the country
was run as "a family corporation." A 2005 State Department cable,
written by an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa and released this year by
WikiLeaks, made the case that "Rampant official corruption impedes foreign
investment, economic growth, and comprehensive development." The State
Department's most recent annual human rights report on Yemen says that
"officials frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity" and
that international observers "presumed that government officials and
parliamentarians benefited from insider arrangements and embezzlement."
"It's
a poor country, so there isn't a lot of money to steal, but because it's poor
it needs every dollar it can get," David Newton, who served as U.S.
ambassador to Yemen between 1994 and 1997, told me. "Corruption really hurts."
President
Barack Obama's administration -- which has been targeting suspected al Qaeda
militants operating in Yemen with drone strikes, including U.S.-born cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in late September -- has worked closely with
Saleh's government on counterterrorism matters but has spoken out against the
regime. During his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 21, Obama said
Yemenis calling for Saleh's ouster were seeking to "prevail over a corrupt
system" and that "America supports those aspirations."
The
State Department has asked for $35 million in foreign military financing for
the next fiscal year for Yemen. Total military, security, and economic aid to
the country has surpassed $100 million during the past two years, according to
a report by the Congressional Research Service.
Stephanie
Brancaforte, the Berlin-based campaign director for Avaaz, a global human
rights group that has worked extensively on Yemen and that alerted me to the
D.C. properties, criticized U.S. policy. "Saleh's forces have not only
killed protesters -- they have inflicted a humanitarian crackdown by
intentionally cutting off water and electricity to millions of people,"
she said. "The U.S. invested more than $100 million to fight terrorism in Yemen,
but that money has primarily gone to prop up a corrupt family.... Meanwhile,
the average Yemeni is less likely to be a victim of terrorism than
malnutrition."
Ahmed
Ali Saleh is one of the most powerful men in Yemen, and his father has long
groomed him to be his replacement (though the president recently promised that
his son would not succeed him). When President Saleh was evacuated to Saudi
Arabia in June after he was seriously burned in an attack on the mosque he was
attending, the younger Saleh moved into the presidential palace and took
charge. His troops have been directly implicated in some of the worst abuses
against protesters.
A
September 2005 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, released by WikiLeaks,
said the president was using the years leading up to a scheduled 2013 election
to "groom his son (a la Mubarak), make him increasingly visible, and place
him in positions of higher responsibility so that he will be seen as an
acceptable candidate." But the cable said that "there are considerable
doubts as to his [Ahmed Ali Saleh's] fitness for the job" and that he did
"not currently command the same respect as his father."
The
cable also called Ahmed Ali Saleh a force of "the status quo, [which] is
becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, given a declining economy, rising
frustration over official corruption, and increasing U.S. and international
pressures on the regime to change the way it does business."
Ahmed
Ali Saleh is certainly not the only controversial foreign official to have
bought real estate in the United States, but the transactions could attract
scrutiny if, for example, the funds used for the purchases could be shown to
have originated in corruption. Ahmed Ali Saleh clearly fits in the category of
"senior foreign political figures" as defined by the USA PATRIOT Act,
who are supposed to be subject to especially careful due diligence by American
financial institutions before accepting their money.
Jack
Blum, an attorney and former Senate counsel who played a key role in
investigations into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and the
Lockheed Corp.'s overseas bribery scandal, summarized the key questions
surrounding Ahmed Ali Saleh's condo-buying: "Was an American bank involved
at any point in the transactions, and if so, did it file a suspicious
activities report? If so, was anything done with it, or did it just make for
interesting wastepaper? Where did he get the money? Could he have afforded to
buy the properties on his official salary?"
Al-Basha,
at Yemen's Washington embassy, would not provide information on the salary of
President Saleh, his son, or other top government officials.
Meanwhile,
back in Yemen the uprising continues. President Saleh has repeatedly said he's
going to leave office -- only to back away at the last minute.
The
rental listing suggests that neither the president nor his eldest son plan on
retiring to Washington anytime soon, however. The property owner "will
consider long term lease," the listing says, so it looks as though Ahmed
Ali Saleh isn't ready to move in to his luxury condo just yet.
-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 18/10/2011
-Ken Silverstein is an Open Society fellow and contributing editor at Harper's Magazine
-Ken Silverstein is an Open Society fellow and contributing editor at Harper's Magazine
