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If you are following international news you must have heard of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist originally from Saudi Arabia who was butchered at their consul in Turkey. He had gone to put his marriage papers in order when they killed him and cut his body into pieces. All this while, his fiance was waiting in the car outside.
I want to talk about one of his uncles who had a close relationship with Nanyuki. His name is Adnan Khashoggi. By the way, Jamal was a cousin to Dodi Al Fayeed who had a relationship with Princess Diana with whom he died in a car crash in Paris (Pont De l’Alma Tunnel on 31st August 1997. Princess Diana was the mother of Prince William who was here the other day and Prince Henry.
Back to Adnan. Adnan was a Saudi Arabian businessman, broker and arms dealer.
According to John Kamau, in January 1976, Adnan landed at the JKIA in his executive private jet. The Boeing 727 was a flying office complete with suites for the billionaire and his friends. He headed straight to Mount Kenya Safari Club (Nanyuki). At that time, it was the meeting point for Western Intelligence Operatives whose agenda was to tame the influence of the Soviet Union in Africa.
In the same year, the club of spies shifted their headquarters from Mt Kenya Safari Club to Cairo. Then Adnan Khashoggi bought Safari Club. The timing was right since the then largest shareholders (Ray Ryan and Carl Hisrchman) were going broke. Khashoggi, the shrewd businessman he was, took advantage of their predicament.
Khashoggi had close links with the CIA. In December 1976, he met with President Jomo Kenyatta for what some think is Kenya’s desperation to get more military hardware as Uganda’s Idi Amin was claiming parts of Western Kenya and Somalia’s Siad Barre was claiming parts of the East. Kenya needed more weapons and Adnan was the go-to guy.
Khashoggi made Ol Pejeta his hideout from where he worked closely with Charles Njonjo and other seniors in the land. With these connections, he got VIP treatment in Kenya. They also gave him and his sons a license to hunt wild animals in Nanyuki - a practice that had been banned.
At OlPejeta, he hosted Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Sudan’s President. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was not happy with Khashoggi for meeting Sharon and wanted him assassinated. Khashoggi challenged Arafat to come and kill him himself.
He is estimated to have had a peak net worth of around US$4 billion in the early 1980s. He owned private jets, a yacht, cars, buildings, land, businesses and money. But in 1990 he was valued at $8 million - a figure that continued going down. He named his yacht Nabila after his daughter. The 282 foot floating palace was valued at $70m. It features in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again. He sold it to Donald Trump at $29m.
For someone who was known to spend $250,000 per day, bankruptcy came calling. As well as the law. After filling for bankruptcy, he was arrested and jailed for fraud.
AK, as he was known, was always with eight Korean bodyguards. He can be described as shrewd, covert, filthy rich at some point, successful, scandalous, extravagant, eccentric, deal-maker, power-broker, Casanova, connected, party-giver, hedonist who loved publicity.
OlPejeta used to be his property and his house at the conservancy was converted into a hotel. His bed (room) is still there.
Khashoggi died on 6 June 2017 while being treated for Parkinson’s disease at the age of 81.