London, Europe Brief News — A newspaper revealed that one of Prince Charles’s organisations got a one million pound donation from Osama bin Laden’s relatives. As a result, fresh doubts have been raised about Prince Charles’s charitable work.
The Sunday Times stated that the money was given to the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund in 2013 by Bakr bin Laden, patriarch of a big and affluent Saudi family, and his brother Shafiq. Both are half-brothers of the former al-Qaida commander who was assassinated in Pakistan in 2011 by US special operations.
The publication said that the heir to the throne was advised not to accept the donation.
However, the Clarence House administration acknowledged that the contribution had been made. It was said that the decision to accept the contribution was made by the charity’s trustees, not the prince, and that “extensive due diligence was conducted before accepting this donation.”
Ian Cheshire, the fund’s chairman, stated that the five trustees agreed “entirely” to the contribution at the time, and “any attempt to indicate otherwise is incorrect and false.”
The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund was established in 1979 to “change lives and develop sustainable communities” and provides grants to a number of initiatives in the United Kingdom and abroad.
Charles, age 73, has been accused of mismanaging his charitable organisations. The Sunday Times revealed last month that he had collected $3 million in cash from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former Qatari prime minister.
London police are examining a further accusation that individuals affiliated with another of the prince’s organisations, the Prince’s Foundation, sought to assist a Saudi billionaire in exchange for money. According to Clarence House, Charles was unaware of the offer.
