Sunday 26 June 2022 10:54 PM Prince Charles charity faces Charity Commission probe over €3m in cash from ... trends now
The Charity Commission is considering whether it has a role to play in investigating one of Prince Charles's charities after it accepted bags of cash worth millions from a Qatari sheik.
It has emerged that former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani donated £2.5million to the Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund (PWCF).
Three donations of nearly £900,000 a time – in 500 euro notes – were stuffed in carrier bags and a holdall.
Such massive cash donations are 'very unusual', a source from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs said yesterday – although not forbidden.
A supporter of Charles admitted that while 'the optics are unhelpful', 'no rules were broken' over the donations
Prince Charles's long-term confidante Michael Fawcett resigned as head of the Prince's Foundation a few months ago after a separate probe
Prince Charles received the money in huge lump sums of cash, handed over in bags and holdalls
While it is legal to both hand over and accept cash in the millions, concern about huge ready-money transactions has arisen in recent years.
They can be used to help launder ill-gotten gains, and potentially give enormous benefits to tax avoiders.
A supporter of Charles admitted that while 'the optics are unhelpful', 'no rules were broken', and the unusually packaged donations were likely to have been accepted to 'avoid causing offence' to the sheik.
But a spokesman for the Charity Commission said yesterday: 'We're considering whether there's a role for the commission to investigate these matters.'
It is only a few months since the Metropolitan Police and Charity Commission launched inquiries into allegations of a different nature surrounding links between Charles's Prince's Foundation – a different body to the PWCF – and Saudi billionaire Mahfouz Marei Mubarak Bin Mahfouz's foundation.
Prince Charles's long-term confidante Michael Fawcett resigned as head of the Prince's Foundation at the same time – following claims he promised to help donor Dr Bin Mahfouz get not only British citizenship but a knighthood too. Prince Charles has said he had 'no knowledge' of any cash-for-honours offers.
The donations from the sheikh, who was prime minister of Qatar from 2007 to 2013, were said to have been personally accepted by Prince Charles
The latest claims involving Middle Eastern money in yesterday's Sunday Times concerned donations of £2.5million made by Sheikh Hamad, 62, between 2011 and 2015.
The donations from the sheikh, who was prime minister of Qatar from 2007 to 2013, were said to have been personally accepted by Prince Charles.
On one occasion around £900,000 was said to have been handed over in carrier bags from luxury shop Fortnum and Mason.
Another time, the sheikh was said to have been in a private meeting with the prince at Clarence House, in 2015, when he gave him £850,000 in a holdall.
Aides are said to have then counted the money – the €500 notes are nicknamed 'Bin Ladens' thanks to their popularity with terrorist money launderers, as well as drug barons – before it was paid into the account of the prince's charity at central London royal bank Coutts.
The meetings with the sheikh were not in the official Court Circular cataloguing royal engagements.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by anyone involved – but the nature of the dealings is raising many eyebrows.
The sheikh has a personal fortune of up to £10billion and is said to consider Britain his second home.
But he has had to deny claims he licensed the alleged 'torture' of a British passport holder, and to insist he had no knowledge of Qatari financial support for Syrian group the Nusra Front, once affiliated with Al Qaeda.
A Clarence House spokesman said yesterday: 'Charitable donations from Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim were passed immediately to one of the prince's charities, who carried out the appropriate governance and have assured us all the correct processes were followed.'
PWCF chairman Sir Ian Cheshire said the sheikh was 'legitimate and verified', adding of what he acknowledged were cash donations: 'There was no failure of governance.'
The PWCF was established in 1979 and gives grants to non-profit making organisations running community projects around the world.
The Charity Commission advises charities to consider 'whether a donation appears to have any suspicious characteristics', and note whether it is in cash.
Trustees are warned to assess 'what is known' about the donor, and in particular whether they are UK taxpayers and if Gift Aid tax benefits could be claimed.
And the commission cautions: 'Have any public concerns been raised about the donors or their activities?... Would any adverse publicity about the donor have a damaging effect on the charity?'
The sheikh's lawyers did not comment. Coutts said it had 'robust policies' over cash payments.
There's just one word for the Prince's judgment: Appalling
By Stephen Glover for The Daily Mail
Yesterday was a very good day indeed for diehard republicans who yearn to replace the monarchy with an elected President.
They can scarcely have believed their ears when they heard that Prince Charles accepted three deliveries of cash totalling about two and a half million pounds between 2011 and 2015. The revelation is beyond their wildest dreams.
As a steadfast monarchist, I had to pinch myself. Could it really be true that bags of cash, some reportedly in the form of high denomination 500 euro notes, had changed hands in the manner described? Alas, it was.
'No one is suggesting that the Prince behaved in a venal fashion in the tiniest degree, or indeed that he or the munificent Sheikh Hamad acted in any way illegally. But my goodness, what appalling judgment Charles showed'
On one occasion Prince Charles is reported to have accepted a holdall containing one million euros from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, a former prime minister of Qatar, during a one-to-one meeting in Clarence House.
It is true that the money was destined for the Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund, which supports a multitude of causes, many of them extremely deserving ones, that are close to Charles's heart.
No one is suggesting that the Prince behaved in a venal fashion in the tiniest degree, or indeed that he or the munificent Sheikh Hamad acted in any way illegally.
But my goodness, what appalling judgment Charles showed. He either demonstrated astonishing naivety or the arrogance of someone who doesn't believe he is constrained by the conventions observed by the rest of us. Very possibly he is guilty on both counts.
For a prudent man would never accept gifts of cash in such whopping quantities, however good the cause or irreproachable the donor.
A sensible prince would recognise that 500 euro notes (a denomination, now discontinued, which was once dubbed the 'Bin Laden' because of its link to terrorist financing) ought to set off alarm bells in the most unwary mind.
A wise heir to the throne, on sighting the holdall (or, on one reported occasion, Fortnum & Mason carrier bags stuffed with banknotes), would have thanked Sheikh Hamad, and said that cash in such amounts would inevitably raise questions. Could he possibly do the normal thing and send a cheque instead?
I suppose Charles might have been embarrassed to make such a point on the first occasion, but surely he or his flunkies could have politely made clear that in future bags of cash were regrettably not acceptable.
Nor should the Prince have been blind to the fact that the billionaire sheikh is a somewhat controversial figure. From 2007 until 2013 he
