Prince would turn down bag filled with cash, were it offered today

‘The Prince operates on advice. Situations change over the years … this would not happen again’

THE Prince of Wales would today refuse to accept a suitcase full of cash, a senior royal source has insisted, amid the furore over donations from a Qatari sheikh totalling £2.5million.

The Charity Commission is to review three separate cash donations to the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF) by a former prime minister of the Gulf state.

The heir to the throne is alleged to have personally accepted the cash donations, made between 2011 and 2015, from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, who was the prime minister of Qatar from 2007 to 2013.

Aides yesterday attempted to distance the Prince from the controversy, stressing that the cash was “passed immediately to his charities” whose decision it was to accept the money. “That is a decision for them,” one wellplaced source said.

“It followed all the right processes, auditors looked at it.”

However, the source conceded that advice had evolved over the years and that such payments would no longer be considered acceptable.

“The Prince of Wales operates on advice,” the source added. “Situations, contexts change over the years.

“I can say with certainty that for more than half a decade, with the situation as it has evolved, this has not happened and it would not happen again.

“That was then, this is now and they are not the same.”

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by either party but the details have raised questions about the judgment of the future king.

On one occasion, the cash from “HBJ”, as Sheikh Hamad, 62, is known, was reportedly stuffed into Fortnum & Mason bags.

During a 2015 meeting at Clarence House, the Prince is said to have accepted a holdall containing €1million.

It is alleged that the cash was handed to royal aides who counted out the now discontinued €500 notes, which was dubbed the “bin Laden” because of its links to the funding of terrorism.

One former adviser who handled some of the cash said “everyone felt uncomfortable about the situation”.

Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced former cabinet minister turned vicar, has defended the Prince, insisting that large cash transactions are commonplace in the Middle Eastern business world.

Mr Aitken, a friend of Sheikh Hamad, described him as “one of the most respected political and financial figures in the region” who would be used to making generous gifts in cash or kind.

“This may sound strange to us but it would raise no eyebrows in the Gulf,” he wrote in a letter to The Times.

Republic, the campaign group, has written to the Charity Commission to ask questions about the cash donations.

Graham Smith, the group’s CEO, said: “It isn’t enough to simply be reassured by Charles and the charity that no rules were broken. These payments raise serious questions that could damage the reputation of Britain’s charity sector.”

The Charity Commission said: “We are aware of reports about donations received by the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation. We will review the information to determine whether there is any role for the commission in this matter.”