The Mark Thatcher Affair: Saudi contact named as key player: David Hellier profiles the alleged middle-man who became a friend of the Thatcher family

MARK THATCHER escaped from the limelight of London in the mid-1980s for Dallas but by 1988 his family had also acquired the use of a residence in Eaton Terrace, in London's Belgravia.

That house appears to have been owned by his friend, Wafic Said, one of the alleged middlemen in the huge Al-Yamamah arms deal.

According to a land registry search, the Eaton Terrace house was owned by a Panamanian company, Formigol, which is registered at the 5th floor of 49, Park Lane, the offices of the Syrian- born businessman, Mr Said. The relationship between Mr Said and Mr Thatcher appears to provide the key to the former prime minister's son's involvement in the pounds 20bn Al-Yamamah deal.

In yesterday's Sunday Times, Adnan Khashoggi, the arms dealer, is quoted as saying: 'Wafic was using Thatcher for intelligence. His value to Wafic was his name, of course, and that whenever Wafic needed a question answered, Thatcher could go directly to his mother for the answer.'

Mr Said, born into a distinguished medical family in Syria - his father was an eye specialist - became one of the Saudi royal family's key business contacts in London during the 1980s. He has always denied that he is an arms dealer. In an interview with GQ magazine in 1992, he said that he 'had never even sold a penknife'. However, in the same article he did acknowledge a connection with British Aerospace through the Al-Yamamah offset programme.

Mr Said's position with the Saudi royal family appears to have arisen in part from his closeness to Prince Bandar bin- Sultan, the Saudi envoy in Washington. Mr Said is said to have become especially close to Prince Bandar's father, Prince Sultan, after a tragic accident at the Prince Sultan's home in 1981 when Mr Said's son, Karim Risa, drowned in a swimming pool. Mr Said had been visiting the house to be sworn in as a Saudi citizen.

Jonathan Aitken, currently Chief Secretary to the Treasury, also had commercial contacts with the Saudi royal family through his directorship of a company called Al-Bilad (UK) Limited, was a boardroom colleague of Mr Said's at the merchant bank Aitken Hume during the 1980s.

Mr Said used to own a pounds 20m London house in Chester Terrace, Regent's Park, where he regularly held evening summer parties for a host of well-connected Arab and British guests. He is often described as a friend of the Thatcher family and was pictured with them at the film premiere of the Frederick Forsyth novel The Fourth Protocol, which he part-financed.

Guests are said to have included Michael Caine (another financier of The Fourth Protocol), and Sir Charles Powell, Lady Thatcher's one-time personal adviser. In 1987, when Mrs Thatcher flew into Dallas to see her son, a banquet was held in her honour and Mr Said was one of only eight men to sit at her table.

Mr Said's business interests in London included a 30 per cent shareholding in Aitken Hume, and control of two investment companies, Safinvest and Said Investments. He was a major shareholder in the Sunday Correspondent newspaper, which folded in November 1991.

In the United States his main investment company Sifcorp was involved in two disastrous investments in Garfinckels, the department store chain, and the National Bank of Washington.

In May 1992 Mr Said was awarded pounds 400,000 libel damages by a High Court judge in London over claims by a fellow countryman, Misbah Baki, that he was not a man of his word. The case, which lasted eight days at the High Court, concerned libels contained in letters written by Mr Baki to Prince Khalid Bin Sultan, a Saudi prince, following a financial disagreement between the two men.

Since the court case, which granted the publicity shy Mr Said unwelcome media attention, he appears to have spent much less time in London. He has sold his Regents' Park residence and bought a more modest apartment in west London. He also spends time at other homes in Paris and Marbella.

Mr Said met his wife Rosemary in Geneva, where she was working as a secretary in a bank. They have two children, a son and a daughter. Apart from his fine residences, Mr Said is also said to own a Boeing 737 and a yacht and is an art collector.

(Photograph omitted)