Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl (1963-) was a Sudanese al-Qaeda member who, in 1996, became an informant for the United States government after stealing $110,000 of Osama bin Laden's money. al-Fadl played a critical role in informing the US intelligence community about the leadership of al-Qaeda, the organization's ideology, and its past and planned attacks (from the group's 1992 bombing in Yemen to its planned use of nuclear weapons).
Biography[]
Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl was born in Sudan in 1963, and he was recruited into the Afghan Mujahideen through the Farouq mosque in Brooklyn. al-Fadl pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1988, attending the meetings where Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, Wael Hamza Julaidan, and Mohammed Loay Bayazid met with eight others to found the organization. al-Fadl became a business agent for al-Qaeda, but he was paid only $500 a month while Egyptian al-Qaeda members were paid $1,200 a month. al-Fadl decided to skim $110,000 of al-Qaeda's money for himself, and, when Bin Laden asked for restitution, al-Fadl instead decided to leave al-Qaeda. In November 1996, al-Fadl met with two US attorneys, Kenneth Karas and Patrick Fitzgerald, and FBI Agent Daniel Coleman, at an American military base in Germany. al-Fadl brought photographs of Bin Laden's associates and identified most of them, although, over the course of several days, he lied to investigators and portrayed himself as a hero who wanted to do the right thing; when asked by the Americans why he wanted to leave al-Qaeda, al-Fadl said that he loved America, as he had lived in Brooklyn and spoke English, and he claimed that he wanted to write a best-selling book. After several long days, al-Fadl admitted that he had run off with more than $100,000 of Bin Laden's money, and he agreed to be a government witness should Bin Laden ever be put on trial. He also revealed al-Qaeda's existence to the men, discussing training camps, sleeper cells, Bin Laden's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, al-Qaeda's responsibility for a 1992 bombing in Yemen and for training the Islamic insurgents who shot down an American helicopter in Somalia that same year, and described al-Qaeda's organizational structure to the Americans. However, his testimony was not accepted by the American intelligence community, who saw al-Fadl as a thief and a liar, and saw terrorism as a nuisance rather than a threat; al-Qaeda had only 93 members at the time, but its members were well-trained, battle-hardened, well-resourced, fanatically committed to their cause, and were brought together by a compelling philosophy, jihadism. During his first twelve years in the Witness Protection Program, al-Fadl became known as an incessant troublemaker whose upkeep was expensive, who suffered severe emotional mood swings, and had a taste for womanizing and financial scheming. In early 2001, he testified against Bin Laden in United States v. Osama bin Laden, which tried Bin Laden under RICO for his role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. During his testimony, al-Fadl revealed that Salim advocated for modern Muslims to follow the teachings of the 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, who had called on the Muslims of Egypt to kill the invading Mongols and any Muslim who supported them (including through something as innocent as trading with them), and who had said that Muslim believers should be unafraid to indiscriminately kill Muslims perceived as being allies of the enemies of Islam, as he said that, even if the believers had killed a good Muslim, the good Muslim would go to heaven.