CAIRO: Although his name has been removed from the United Nations’ Security Council’s terrorist list, Youssef Nada still faces charges in Egypt that stand in the way of his return to his home country.
“I have been away from Egypt since 1960 and I want to come back to my country . There is no place like home, the 78-year-old businessman told Daily News Egypt in a phone interview.
In 2008, a military court handed down a 10-year jail sentence to Nada in absentia on charges of financing the banned Muslim Brotherhood group.
Although Nada denies the charges brought against him, he says there is little to do about the verdict.
“There’s nothing I can do … I will stay abroad because I cannot come back to Egypt or else I will be arrested, he said.
For nearly 50 years, Egyptian and foreign authorities have been investigating Nada on charges of funding terrorist groups – including Al-Qaeda post 9/11. However the charges were dropped on the heels of a decision by the UN’s Security Council to remove his name from the international terrorist list.
Nada said the flurry of accusations against him were a result of a Swiss journalist’s report claiming he financed the Muslim Brotherhood. Nada said the report included “fake documents to prove those claims.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, two Egyptian journalists and one Israeli published a series of articles claiming Nada was funding Hamas with $60 million.
“These were also false accusations; both the Egyptian and international authorities have been monitoring my assets and transactions since 1967, Nada said, explaining that it would have been impossible for him to send money to Hamas even if he wanted to.
“They [the different investigative authorities] have been unable to prove anything since, he said.
Nada maintains that he never financed the Muslim Brotherhood or any other group.
Nada was allowed under Swiss law to review all the police reports against him now that the charges have been dropped.
“So I can now confidently say that the charges brought against me were unfounded and that is why they have all been proven wrong, he said.
Nada said he found a report filed against him from Jordan in 2003 accusing him of financing Abou Mosab Al-Zarakawy, the notorious Jordanian terrorist, who headed Al-Qaeda in Iraq but was killed by the Americans.
“This report was one of the main reasons that shifted the US government’s attention to investigate me in 2001, Nada said.
However, after almost 10 years of investigations, foreign and local authorities “failed to prove any connections between me and any terrorist group, Nada said.
Nada left for Switzerland during the 1960s where he worked in the financial sector until finally establishing a private bank called Al-Taqwa.
Nada, born in 1931 in Alexandria, was first exposed to the Brotherhood as a 17-year-old. “A big fight erupted in my neighborhood and a group of people interfered and solved the matter. When I asked who they were, people told me they were the Muslim Brotherhood, he said, explaining that this pushed him to join the group.
Nada said that he was initially impressed by the Brotherhood who struck him as “saviors who help other people and are always there at times of need.
However, his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood remained an obstacle throughout his life both abroad and in Egypt.
Nada began his career working for his father who owned a dairy products factory. However, he was arrested along with hundreds of Brotherhood members in 1954 as part of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s crackdown on the group.
“I am used to the arrests, I have been put in house arrest for many years before and all my assets and money were taken away from me during investigations, he said, “there were times when I was only allowed to move within a 1 km radius.
While the two years Nada spent in jail familiarized him with prison and taught him not to fear it, they also motivated him to leave the country.
After receiving his BA degree in agricultural engineering from Alexandria University, he started his own dairy products business with an Egyptian partner, paving the way for his departure.
At the age of 28, Nada left Egypt and worked in Austria, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and finally Switzerland. He has both Tunisian and Italian citizenships.
Since he moved away, Nada returned to Egypt twice, once in the 1970s when he was working on establishing the Islamic Bank of Feisal. He however resigned halfway through.
He later returned in the 1980s upon the request of the late former Minister of Interior Al-Nabawy Ismail.
Ismail asked Nada to come and work in Egypt, however he was stopped at the airport by security officials, “so I decided to travel again and never come back.
“But now I miss my home country and nothing can ever substitute home to me, Nada said.
The UN’s Security Council removed Nada from the international terrorists list based on a request by the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While the decision to remove his name from the terrorists’ list was reported by the foreign and local press alike, the latter did not indicate that he is accused by the Egyptian authorities for funding the Muslim Brotherhood and is sentenced to 10 years in jail.
