Haji Hajji ( ar, الحجّي; sometimes spelled Hadji, Haji, Alhaji, Al-Hadj, Al-Haj or El-Hajj) is an honorific title which is given to a Muslim who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca. It is also often used to refer to an elder, since it ...

Pacha Wazir is an Emirati citizen who ran a series of

Hawala Hawala or hewala ( ar, حِوالة , meaning ''transfer'' or sometimes ''trust''), also known as in Persian, and or in Somali, is a popular and informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a huge network of money b ...

banks before being arrested in 2003, amid accusations that he worked as the "main banker" for

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

. The

Canadian Security Intelligence Service The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS, ; french: Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité, ''SCRS'') is Canada's primary national intelligence agency. It is responsible for collecting, analysing, reporting and disseminating int ...

alleges that

Mohamed Harkat Mohamed Harkat ( ar, محمد حركات) (born August 6, 1968, Algeria) is a native-born Algerian and permanent resident of Canada who was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of ties to terrorism and was imprisoned under security certificates. The Cana ...

was recorded on the phone with a "Haji Wazir" whom handled financial transactions for him, and described his bid to gain

permanent resident Permanent residency is a person's legal resident status in a country or territory of which such person is not a citizen but where they have the right to reside on a permanent basis. This is usually for a permanent period; a person with such ...

status in Canada. According to Rob Suskind, when Wazir was arrested and sent to a

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

black site In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with a ...

, he proved uncooperative and American officials illegally transferred his brother from Germany to the same site, and arrested his

branch manager A branch manager is an executive who oversees a division or office of a large business or organization, operating locally or with a particular function. Their responsibility is to ensure that payments to employees are correct, their vacation pay arr ...

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

. Members of the American

posed as distant cousins taking over the business after Wazir's illness, and continued financial transactions, entrapping many of his colleagues as well. However, in his book ''The Interrogator: An Education'',

Glenn Carle Glenn Carle is an American writer and former intelligence officer. He is the author of ''The Interrogator: An Education'' (2011), which describes his involvement in the interrogation of a man at the time believed to be one of the top members of al-Q ...

contradicts the claims Suskind made about Wazir. Carle was the CIA officer who handled the interrogation of Wazir, and according to his account, Carle concluded after the interrogation that Wazir cooperated and told the truth about his operations. Reporting on Wazir's story after the publication of Carle's book, Scott Horton for ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'' concludes, "The suggestion that Pacha Wazir was consciously managing bin Laden's financial affairs was then, and remains today, utterly baseless." Perhaps the most shocking part of Carle's account is that his conclusions about Wazir were ignored by his superiors at the CIA. As a result, it was not until February 2010 was Wazir released and sent home to Afghanistan.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Emirati businesspeople Emirati bankers Osama bin Laden Emirati prisoners and detainees {{Asia-business-bio-stub