The website of a Swiss religious organization has posted a notice about a seminar on “sexual human rights” which was to have been held on September 11 in St. Gallen, Switzerland and which featured Kaldoun Dia Eddine, a former shareholder and employee of the now-defunct Al Taqwa Bank. Al Taqwa, which had both a Bahamas-registered bank and a Swiss corporate office, was set up in 1988 on principles of Islamic finance and had a shareholder list comprised of many Muslim Brotherhood figures including the family of global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi who also served as the bank’s Sharia advisor. Very little is actually known about the Al Taqwa’s operations but it, along with with its chairman Youssef Nada and the other directors, was designated in November 2001 as terrorist entities in connection with the financing of Al Qaida. (As recent posts have discussed, terrorism charges against Nada and his associates have recently been dropped in Switzerland and Italy for lack of evidence.)
Dia Eddine, described in the notice as a member of a Swiss Islamic umbrella organization, is a Swiss engineer who is reportedly married to the daughter of Ghaleb Ali Himmat, the business partner of Youssef Nada and a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany. Dia-Eddine is also associated with Swiss charities operating in Bosnia including Mercy International Relief Organization (MIRO), a humanitarian organization that played a role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa. Mr. Eddine and MIRO were accused by a private Swiss anti-crime NGO of having been involved in arms smuggling into the Balkans. He is known to be active in Swiss Islamic organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.