AMMAN: The Jordanian Royal Court on Monday rejected as “inaccurate” and “misleading” news reports about foreign bank accounts reportedly belonging to King Abdullah.
In a statement, the Royal Court said the reports included “inaccuracies, and outdated and misleading information that were employed with the aim of defaming Jordan and His Majesty, as well as distorting the truth.”
The statement, seen by Arab News, came after the emergence of a series of reports in the international press based on leaked data from Credit Suisse, a leading Swiss bank.
The reports claimed King Abdullah had six accounts with Credit Suisse, one worth around $224 million.
The Royal Court said the total balance mentioned in a number of reports is “inaccurate and exaggerated, as a result of significant duplicative counting.”
The data, leaked to Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, contains details of 18,000 bank accounts for prominent global figures, which were held from the 1940s to the 2010s, including by the sons of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Alaa and Gamal, who allegedly held a total of six accounts at various points, including one in 2003 worth $196 million.
“The majority of the sums listed in the accounts (of King Abdullah) relate to the sale of a large Airbus 340 airplane for $212 million, and replacing it with a smaller, less costly Gulfstream aircraft. His Majesty had inherited two planes from His Majesty the late King Hussein, which were sold, with the resulting sum used to replace them more than once over the past 20 years, including the sale of the Airbus 340 and the purchase of the Gulfstream aircraft currently used by His Majesty,” the statement said.
The closed accounts, the Royal Court added, include an account with deposits inherited by King Abdullah from King Hussein.
Regarding an account belonging to Queen Rania of Jordan, the Royal Court said that it was established as a trust fund for the king’s children. The funds came from the king’s private wealth, and the account was entrusted to the children’s mother, as they were minors at the time, the statement said.
In response to reports, linking the monarch’s wealth to foreign aid, the Royal Court said the king’s “private assets have always been independent of the Treasury and public funds.”
The Royal Court reaffirmed that all international assistance coming to Jordan is “subject to professional audits, and their allocations are fully accounted for by the government and donor entities, in accordance with cooperation agreements subject to the highest standards of governance and oversight.
“Any allegations that link the funds in these accounts to public funds or foreign assistance are defamatory, baseless, and deliberate attempts to distort facts and systematically target Jordan’s reputation, as well as His Majesty’s credibility, especially coming after similar reports published last year that were based on leaks from previous years.”
