December 20, 2001	Thursday	Shawwal 4, 1422

WASHINGTON, Dec 19: Widespread reports in the US media that Saudi Arabia encourages violence and is not cooperating in the war on terrorism are “bullshit”, the country’s ambassador to the United States said on Tuesday.

Using blunt language, an exasperated Prince Bandar bin Sultan rejected reports that Saudi Arabia teaches hatred of non-Muslims in its schools and has paid protection money to Osama bin Laden in order to avoid terrorist attacks on its soil.

“You know what? This is bullshit, to be honest with you,” Prince Bandar said on CNBC television’s “Hardball” programme.

“Islam is against hate, Islam is for tolerance, Saudi Arabia practises Islam,” he said in reference to reports that Saudi textbooks promote hatred of the west.

“The truth of the matter is, we think he’s evil, bin Laden. We think people who follow him are evil. We have pain for what happened in America ... We are condemning what happened. You guys are refusing to accept us.”

In an often heated interview, the envoy — the dean of Washington’s diplomatic corps — also repeatedly denied charges in many major US newspapers that the Saudis were refusing Washington’s demands to enact financial curbs on bin Laden-affiliates.

“You have to forgive me,” he said. “American media is either lazy or ignorant. This man, his family froze his assets, they disowned him, the government stripped him from his nationality.”

The prince also said reports that Saudi television had not aired a videotape of bin Laden boasting of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington were untrue.

“They aired it three times when it first came out,” the prince said, adding that he himself had issued a strong statement calling bin Laden a “murderous criminal” when the tape was released by the Pentagon last week.

He noted, however, that there were no plans for Saudi television to broadcast the tape again because it wasn’t “big news” in Saudi Arabia that bin Laden was a terrorist.

“Common sense tells us that bin Laden is not big news in Saudi Arabia as a terrorist,” the prince said. “You know why? Because we knew he was a terrorist before the 11th of September.

“He was stripped from his nationality, his people were chased, his people were behind the attack that killed five American soldiers in Saudi Arabia four or five years ago.”

He referred to the June 1996, truck bomb attack outside a US military housing complex in Khobar that killed 19 American servicemen.—AFP