Abu Zubaydah - Saudi and Pakistani Connection Allegations

Saudi and Pakistani Connection Allegations

Gerald Posner in his book "Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11" claimed that Abu Zubaydah was duped by U.S. interrogators masquerading as Saudis and using painkillers and sodium pentathol, sometimes called "truth serum". Zubaydah, he writes, thought he was in a Saudi prison, when in fact he was in Afghanistan. Posner says Zubaydah, "relieved" to find he was being quizzed by people he thought were Saudis, provided them with phone numbers for a senior member of the Saudi royal family who would "tell you what to do." He says the U.S. interrogators were stunned when the numbers were traced to Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a nephew of King Fahd.

When the agents accused Zubaydah of lying, he revealed more details of Saudi and Pakistani ties to bin Laden, the author says, and in the space of one week, three of the four persons named by him were dead. Prince Ahmed, 43, died of a heart attack on July 22, 2002. The next day, a car crash killed Saudi Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, 41. A week later, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, 25, reportedly died "of thirst" while traveling east of Riyadh. Seven months later, a plane crash "in clear weather," Posner says, killed Pakistani Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, his wife and several aides in Pakistan.