Spain´s Al Qaeda cell finance boss owned Palma yacht bussiness

Spanish police are holding a suspected member of the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda who started his business operations in Palma before moving to the mainland. Ahmed Brahim, 57, is believed to have been in charge of financing Al Qaeda's cell in Spain and according to the Spanish Home Secretary Mariano Rajoy, is also alleged to have been a leading planner of the bomb attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed more than 200 people in August 1998. Brahim also had a “close relationship” with Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, whom Rajoy described as the “financial brain” of Osama Bin Laden's network and a founding member of al Qaeda. Salim is currently in prison in the US, accused of conspiracy in the 1998 embassy bombings. Brahim has been living in Spain since 1987 when he set up a yachting dealership in Palma, Nora Yachting, named after his daughter who was in Palma running his local businesses until a year ago. Brahim also used to apparently own a yacht named after his daughter as well. Brahim owned an apartment along the Paseo Maritimo, which he sold just two months before the September 11 attacks. Nora Yachting was a sports charter fishing company which operated four, seven metres fishing boats out of Porto Cristo. However, when Brahim first started operating in Palma, he apparently intended to establish a yacht dealership on the island, importing yachts from the United States and then selling them in Majorca. Brahim, subject of a seven-month investigation, also ran a public relations company and according to the police, had recently sent money to some European countries and computer equipment to a number of Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, they said. When police raided his Barcelona home, a substantial amount of computer equipment was seized and police said that the confiscated records may contain evidence of front businesses in Barcelona and Majorca that provided financing for terrorist groups.