‘The man who bought London’ Hamad bin Jassim the powerful man in London
The crisis over the acquisition of Qatari money by Prince Charles, the British Crown Prince, in grocery bags continues to stir international public opinion on a wide scale since it was revealed by the ‘Sunday Times’ newspaper, to put all the newspapers under the spotlight.
The British newspaper, The Guardian, highlighted the reason for the controversial money, former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, publishing a detailed report on his personal wealth estimated at more than $1.2 billion (around £1 billion) according to Forbes magazine. He is one of the richest men in the country – and he has often received attention because of his wealth he is currently making headlines about the alleged cash donations to Prince Charles.
The 62-year-old man was dubbed ‘the man who bought London’ after he used his wealth, as well as his influence as head of Qatar’s multi-billion dollar sovereign wealth fund, as the investment authority is working to expand Qatari financial assets in London through a series of valuable assets, the paper reported.
From 2000 to 2013, Al Thani oversaw a series of high-profile investments in British companies that included Harrods, Shard (95% owned by Qatar), the Olympic Village of London, and the Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel.
Al Thani made a name for himself because of his political prowess as well, a relative of Qatar’s ruling family, and held several high-level positions in the Qatari government including the foreign minister in 1992. He was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Qatar in 2003. In 2007, he became Prime Minister, a position he stepped down from in 2013.
In a 2016 interview with the Financial Times, he was described as an unapologetic statesman known for his desire to express his opinion, and shamelessly swing from policy to policy.
Over the years, he has been pivotal in coordinating Qatar’s participation in international diplomacy, including in Yemen, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian territories, the British newspaper said. Al Thani was named peacemaker for his efforts to broker reconciliation between warring factions in Africa and the Middle East, according to a 2015 Middle East Eye report.
It may come as no surprise, then, that several years ago, the former Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, reportedly indicated that although he ran the country, it was his then Prime Minister, HBJ, who reportedly owned it, and reportedly admitted that under his premiership Qatar probably funded Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, without his knowledge.
In 2012, Al Thani was chosen as one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine, a decision supported by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who described his best friend as a wise person, a model leader and a man of vision.
In recent years, scrutiny of Al Thani’s financial resources has returned, in 2016, to the designation of the Panama Papers, one of the largest data leaks ever by the world’s fourth largest outside law firm, Mossack Fonseca.
According to the International Federation of Investigative Journalists (IFJ), it has been revealed that Al Thani used foreign companies to run his luxurious yacht in Mallorca, which is valued at US$300 million. Then Qatar’s investment in Barclays during the financial crisis in 2008, when Al Thani was prime minister, became the center for a criminal trial over the controversial services deal between the lender and the small Gulf state. Three former Barclays executives were charged with making fraudulent consultancy agreements to conceal payments worth £322 million to Qatar.
In 2012, Al-Thani was also named in the Pandora Papers, which revealed that he had used offshore companies in tax havens, including the British Virgin Islands and the Bahamas.
