Middlemen Say Funds Were in North’s Charge

WASHINGTON — The key Iranian and Saudi Arabian middlemen in the sale of U.S. arms to Iran said in television interviews Thursday that ousted White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North controlled the Swiss accounts into which as much as $35 million was deposited in payment for U.S. weapons sent to Iran.

The Iranian, Manucher Ghorbanifar, and the Saudi, Adnan Khashoggi, said in an interview on the ABC-TV program “20-20” that Iranis had initiated contacts with the United States and that then-White House National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane responded by asking for Iranian help in releasing hostages held in Lebanon.

Ghorbanifar said that the Tehran government, in turn, said Washington should send arms to Iran to help it in its war with Iraq. Ghorbanifar is an Iranian businessman whom ABC described as head of European intelligence for the prime minister of Iran, Hussein Moussavi.

Ghorbanifar and Khashoggi said they had not known that up to $30 million in proceeds from the sale had gone to help Nicaraguan rebels. And they left unclear how much President Reagan and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini knew about the deal and when they learned of it.

Hostage Released

However, Khashoggi said he believed that Reagan approved the arrangement before the first shipment to Iran, which he said was in August, 1985. An American hostage, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, was released on Sept. 14, 1985.

Khashoggi said money for the weapons was deposited in a Swiss bank account in the name of Lake Resources, but he did not know where it went after that.

“We think it was controlled by North (because) he is the coordinator,” said Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer and businessman with ties to the royal family. Ghorbanifar said that North and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord controlled the account.

Secord has been named by investigators as a key associate of North in the Iran arms sale and the diversion of funds to the contras.

CIA Director Willam J. Casey, in congressional testimony this week, identified Lake Resources as one of the firms involved in the complicated transactions.

The interviews were the first with Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar since the Iran arms sales came to public attention at the beginning of November.