Adnan Khashoggi, obituary: Saudi Arabian arms dealer and Dodi Al-Fayed's uncle remembered

On Adnan Khashoggi’s 50th birthday in 1985 the high-living arms dealer gave the party to end all parties on his vast estate in Marbella. His brother gave him a lion cub. Shirley Bassey sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Other stars like Sean Connery were in attendance. Refrigerator lorries were parked outside to cool the champagne.

On top of his birthday, cake was a 3ft golden crown made out of sugar: his chef had flown to the Louvre to study Louis XIV’s coronation crown and had made a copy. “Anyone who was there knew they had reached the pinnacle of high society,” wrote Khashoggi’s biographer, Ronald Kessler.

He had 12 homes around the world: in New York he knocked together 16 apartments into one and spent a reputed $250,000 a day maintaining his lifestyle. He had 100 limousines and an $80m yacht that was used as the criminal mastermind’s HQ in the Bond film Never Say Never Again, and which eventually ended up belonging to Donald Trump. He had a string of what he called “pleasure wives”, whose company he personally enjoyed and who he would also hire out to other rich men.

He was born in Mecca in 1935, the son of King Abdul Aziz Al Saud’s personal physician. He started out running an import business; one of his employees was Mohamed Al-Fayed, who married his sister, making Khashoggi Dodi Fayed’s uncle.

Through the 1960s, '70s and ’80s he engineered a series of arms deals that by the mid-1980s had brought him an estimated fortune of $4bn. He brokered deals between American firms and Saudi Arabia, working particularly closely with the Lockheed Corporation. He also represented France when it fought off British competition to secure a $20bn oil-for-weapons deal.

He married a waitress’s daughter from Leicester, Sandra Daly, who converted to Islam and took the name of Soraya. They had a daughter and four sons together, but divorced amicably in the mid-1970s: the settlement was reported to be $875m. She had another daughter shortly after, who was eventually revealed to be the daughter of the eventually-disgraced Tory politician Jonathan Aitken. Soraya went on to have a string of lovers including Warren Beatty, James Hunt, Sammy Davis Jnr and Roman Polanski.

open image in gallery

Khashoggi was implicated in the Iran-Contra affair as a middleman between Oliver North and the Iranians in the arms-for-hostages exchanges. But his business empire began to unravel in the late 1980s as buyers and sellers of arms began to do business face-to-face rather than through a broker.

In 1988 he was arrested in Switzerland and extradited to the US on charges of helping Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos hide the money they had embezzled in the Philippines. Though he and Imelda were eventually acquitted in New York – Ferdinand had died during proceedings – Khashoggi had become damaged goods. One deal after another failed, and he began defaulting on debts. In 1998 he settled a £10m gambling debt racked up at the Ritz Casino in London.

He married again, to an Italian woman, Laura Biancolini, who also converted to Islam, and changed her name to Lamia; they had a son. Khashoggi spent the rest of his life avoiding debtors, and lived in reduced but still comfortable circumstances in Monaco. He died in London, where he was being treated for Parkinson’s Disease.

Though his career ended in decline and disgrace, he had at least one admirer. “Khashoggi understood the art of bringing people together and putting together a deal better than almost anyone – all the bullshitting part,” said Donald Trump.

Adnan Khashoggi, born 25 July 1935; died 6 June 2017