PRIEST GETS $$$ from SADDAM HUSSEIN -- HIS DENIAL IS BELIED

A revelation about Saddam's Hussein's money going to one of his supporters and toadies in the West has just appeared in the respected Italian business daily, Il Sole-24 Ore. A priest who is a counterpart of George Galloway, always making excuses for Saddam's crimes and for PLO terrorism [mass murder of Jews and others] had a Swiss bank account which received $$ from sale of Iraqi oil vouchers. The priest, one Padre Jean-Marie Benjamin, had always denied getting money from Saddam. This development reflects on George Galloway, the member of Commons for the Baghdad bombers, who likewise always denied getting Saddam's money.

Here are some details:
Jean-Marie Benjamin became a priest at age 46 after a career of working for UNICEF [the UN fund supposedly for kids]. As a priest, he helped Cardinal Casaroli at the Vatican. Another job he had at the Vatican was in the Vatican Secretariat of State. He then became secretary-general of the Beato Angelico Foundation.

As an admirer of mass murderer Saddam Hussein, he was invited to speak before the British parliament on behalf of Saddam, as well as before the UN Human Rights Commission, which is dominated by governments that regularly violate human rights. It was his idea to bring Saddam's foreign minister, Tarik Aziz, to Rome to meet the pope shortly before the US attack, in order "to stop the war at the last minute." He organized the trip.

He always denied getting $$ from Saddam or from Iraq. His pro-Saddam activities were purely voluntary and without pecuniary award, he always maintained. When it was revealed in 2004 that he had received an oil voucher from Iraq, he responded with clever sarcasm, much like George Galloway: "Fantastic . . . They don't know any more how to attack those who speak the truth."

He signed a manifesto of the "Committee for the Iraqi Resistance," which rejected "the imperialist accusation according to which the Iraqi legitimate resistance is criminal terrorism."

DETAILS OF HIS RECEIVING PAYMENT
There is a Swiss lawyer, Alain Bionda, who represented the al-Takriti family [Saddam's family] in Switzerland, particularly Barzani and Muhammad al-Takriti [or Tikriti], the stepbrother and nephew of Saddam. Muhammad is said to have managed Saddam's secret treasury. Alain Bionda was president of the Swiss-Iraqi Friendship Society. In 2001, Padre Benjamin got $811,866 in three instalments. Benjamin claimed that the money was a contribution to the Angelico Foundation. However, a large sum of money was transferred into Benjamin's Swiss bank account byAlain Bionda on the same day that Alain Bionda had sold Iraqi oil to oil traders. Transfer of an oil voucher to Benjamin was confirmed by pro-Saddam Hussein Italian businessman, Gianpiero Panzolini.

This info and more was published in an article in Il Sole-24 Ore on 18 IX 2005 and in an editorial in the same paper on 20 IX 2005. Claudio Gatti wrote the article.

If a Saddam Hussein groupie in Italy --Padre Benjamin-- can get payoffs from Saddam through a Swiss bank account, why can't a Saddam groupie in Britain do the same?

GEORGE GALLOWAY, DO YOU TOO HAVE A SECRET SWISS BANK ACCOUNT?
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Those who wish to thank Il Sole for this important revelation can write to the paper at letterealsole@ilsole24ore.com