Bin Ladens gave £1m to Charles’s charity
PRINCE Charles was accused of a ‘serious lack of judgment’ yesterday after it emerged his charity accepted £1million (€1.2million) from the family of Osama bin Laden.
It received the donation after Charles had a private meeting with the terrorist’s half-brother Bakr bin Laden in 2013 – two years after the Al Qaeda leader was killed by US special forces.
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is likely to face calls to investigate in light of the revelation. Royal sources denied reports that Charles, 73, had ‘brokered’ the donation, or that he agreed to it in the face of opposition from his advisers.
Clarence House said the trustees of the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF) had agreed to accept the donation without the prince’s involvement, and that they carried out ‘thorough due diligence’.
But the latest revelation comes only weeks after it emerged the PWCF accepted more than
£2.5million (€3million) in cash donations, said to be stuffed in bags and suitcases, from a former Qatari prime minister. And it raised further questions about the fundraising activities of the prince’s charity, and why it accepted money from the Bin Laden family.
Former UK government minister Norman Baker said: ‘Prince Charles continues to show a serious lack of judgment about whom he will accept money from.
‘Is there in fact anyone he would refuse money from? Is this really appropriate behaviour from the heir to the throne?’ The Bin Laden family publicly disowned Osama bin Laden in 1994, before it emerged his Al Qaeda network had carried out the 9/11 attacks.
Both the PWCF and Clarence House said the £1million donation was accepted by the charity’s trustees, and not by the prince.
A spokesman for Clarence House said: ‘The PWCF has assured us that thorough due diligence was undertaken.’ The Charity Commission declined to comment.