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Bin Laden Link: El-Shifa Factory Chief
Lives in House He Used to Occupy

By Tina Susman, Africa Correspondent
Staff writer Knut Royce in Washington contributed to this story.
August 27, 1998, Thursday, Nassau and Suffolk Edition, page A03

KHARTOUM, Sudan – A man described as the general manager of the El-Shifa Pharmaceuticals factory here destroyed by U.S. missiles lives in a house once occupied by Osama bin Laden, the man accused of orchestrating the bombing of two U.S. embassies.

Bin Laden held regular late afternoon meetings with supporters in the villa in Khartoum’s expensive Al-Riyad neighborhood and divided his time between the opulent structure, described by neighbors as a guest house, and a second house two doors away where his three or four wives lived, the neighbors said yesterday. When the Saudi millionaire left Sudan two years ago, they say Osman Suleiman of El-Shifa moved into the guest house, a link that could bolster U.S. claims that the factory was a front for terrorist activities.

Though bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, he still has ties to the neighborhood because he continues to own his home there, according to a Washington official.

Employees at El-Shifa, in addition to the lawyer who represents El-Shifa owner Salah Idris, say Suleiman is the factory’s general manager. Suleiman denied this as he sat behind a desk yesterday in a downtown Khartoum office whose doors are marked El-Shifa in giant blue letters. Suleiman also denied being Suleiman but eventually admitted who he is.

According to the flustered Suleiman, he was El-Shifa’s manager until June, when Idris, who had purchased the business three months earlier, replaced most high-level employees. He said he did not know why people were still describing him as El-Shifa’s manager. He also admitted he lives on the same street where bin Laden lived but said his house was not the same one used by the alleged terrorist sponsor. However, guards who answered the door of the house, marked 107, and neighbors living across the street confirmed that Suleiman had lived there for about two years since bin Laden vacated it.

“You have been on that street. Does that mean you know bin Laden personally?” Suleiman said, insisting he had nothing to do with bin Laden.

In 1994, gunmen raked the house with gunfire in a presumed assassination attempt on bin Laden, but he was not in the house at the time. Neighbors have described bin Laden as a shadowy figure who had trenches dug at each end of the street after the 1994 attack to prevent vehicles from passing in front of the two houses he used. He ordered the family across the street to turn off the music and keep boys and girls apart when they held a party one night, said one of the family members.

Sudanese government and El-Shifa officials have denied any link between the factory, which Washington claims was developing chemical weapons components, and bin Laden, now living in exile in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have said in the past that they suspect bin Laden had some financial interest in the suspect plant, but they have never said on what they based their suspicions.

Yesterday, a Washington official told Newsday that Idris, the owner of record of the pharmaceutical plant, is a partner with bin Laden in other Sudanese businesses and is a financial supporter of Hassan Al-Turabi’s National Islamic Front.

It is no secret that bin Laden lived in Sudan in the mid-1990s after leaving his native Saudi Arabia and that he had extensive business interests here. His family’s money was taken out of the country after he left in 1996, said Turabi, the secretary general of Sudan’s National Congress and the country’s most powerful Muslim leader, in an interview with Newsday.

“We wanted him to stay because we wanted the money of his family,” said Turabi, who added that bin Laden left on his own accord after western powers accused Sudan of harboring terrorists. “He was sympathic to Sudan. He didn’t want to embarrass it,” said Turabi, adding that he was unaware of any terrorist activities involving bin Laden or any links with the U.S. Embassy bombings Aug. 7 in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

But Turabi said he could understand why someone like bin Laden, who was “hunted” by the United States, might be driven to such drastic measures. “If he had done it, I would understand it. I would not condone it,” said Turabi, accusing Washington of hounding Muslim groups and leaders such as bin Laden.

 

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