
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 9, 1994                   TAG: 9401090059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

U.S. WON'T PROSECUTE BCCI SHEIK

U.S. prosecutors and banking officials settled a legal and diplomatic battle with Abu Dhabi on Saturday when the royal family of the Persian Gulf state agreed to give up claims to $400 million it had invested in First American Bankshares Inc.

The agreement gives investigators access to a key witness with knowledge of the BCCI financial scandal, sources familiar with it said.

In return, a $1.5 billion civil lawsuit against Abu Dhabi's ruler, brought by First American's court-appointed trustee, will be dropped. U.S. prosecutors also have agreed not to pursue any criminal charges against the ruler, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who was the majority shareholder in the now-defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

With the dropping of Abu Dhabi's claims on the $400 million, about half will go to the U.S. Treasury and the other half to depositors of BCCI around the world who lost money when the scandal-ridden bank was shut down in 1991.

The deal provides for U.S. investigators to speak for the first time with Swaleh Naqvi, the chief deputy to BCCI founder Aga Hasan Abedi. He is under indictment in the United States on bank fraud charges, but has never been interviewed by prosecutors because he and other key BCCI officials are under house arrest in Abu Dhabi.

- The Washington Post

by CNB