Kerik's conduct in Saudi Arabia questioned

By John Mintz and Lucy Shackelford
The Washington Post

Bernard Kerik was expelled from Saudi Arabia.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

WASHINGTON — The autobiography of Bernard Kerik, President Bush's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, recounts a difficult time 20 years ago when he was expelled from Saudi Arabia amid a power struggle involving the head of a hospital complex where Kerik helped command a security staff.

In the book, Kerik described his discomfort at having to investigate employees' private lives but said it was necessary because of the Saudis' laws prohibiting drinking and mingling of the sexes in public. "It was challenging, negotiating such a closed, rigid system and trying to find justice in laws that, to an American, were unjust," he wrote. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1984, the book said, after an altercation with a Saudi secret-police official who was interrogating him.

Since he was nominated last week to be homeland security secretary, however, nine former employees of the hospital have said that Kerik and his colleagues were carrying out the private agenda of the hospital's administrator, Nizar Feteih, and that the surveillance was intended to control people's private affairs.

Feteih became embroiled in a scandal that centered in part on his use of the institution's security staff to track the private lives of several women with whom he was romantically involved, and men who came in contact with them, the former employees said.

Kerik, who as chief of investigations was considered third in command of the security staff, surveilled some employees and at times confronted them with the results, several former employees said. He also was a lead investigator in the controversial arrest, for drinking, of a physician who was detained and deported from Saudi Arabia for the crime.

Former employees also said the official Saudi investigation of Feteih and the security team was begun in response to hospital employees' complaints to Saudi officials of intimidation by Feteih and the security staff.

After medical personnel at the hospital complained to Saudi officials, the security team helped get one whistle-blower jailed overnight, sought to put another into a Saudi mental hospital and stepped up surveillance of some members of the medical staff, several of the former hospital employees said. Six members of the hospital security staff, including Kerik, were fired and deported, and Feteih was sacked as hospital administrator after a 1984 investigation by the Saudi secret police, they said.

Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner praised by Bush as "one of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America," was nominated last week to succeed Tom Ridge as secretary of the sprawling anti-terrorism agency created in 2003. If confirmed, Kerik would run a Cabinet department with investigative units, including the Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At times they deal with the Saudis.

The former employees said their allegations shed light on the extent of Kerik's loyalty to his superiors. They involve his work from 1982 to 1984 as chief of investigations for the security office at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, one of the kingdom's premier hospitals, where royal family members are treated.
 
"Kerik was a goon," said John Jones, a former hospital manager, who said he felt harassed by the security team. "They were Gestapo. ... They made my life so miserable."

Ted Bailey, a doctor at the hospital who now practices in Indiana, said, "Kerik used heavy-handed tactics in following single men around and keeping them away from some women." Added paramedic Michael Queen, "Men and women had to be careful with security, but Bernie was the one we watched out for the most."

Kerik said that he knows of no improprieties by the security staff and that he was put in an awkward position in having to enforce the strict Saudi moral code. Alcohol is prohibited under the code, but the government usually allows Westerners to ignore that ban and the one on intermingling of the sexes inside the walled compounds of institutions such as the King Faisal hospital and their homes, as long as they do so privately.

Bob Burghardt, who worked with Kerik at the hospital and remains his friend, said in an interview that he knew of no improper surveillance by the security team. "Bernie and I were ostracized [by hospital staff members] for upholding Saudi law," said Burghardt, who is now an auditor.

Gilda Riccardi, then a hospital nurse and now a friend of Kerik's, said that despite rumors of wiretapping and impropriety by the security staff, she knows of no proof it occurred.

Kerik is barred from commenting by rules governing confirmation. A spokesman for Giuliani Partners, the firm for which Kerik works, declined to comment. An administration official working with Kerik on his confirmation said Kerik described events at the hospital "with candor and in some detail" in his 2001 memoir, "The Lost Son."

"As he noted in the book, there was a power struggle among two politically connected figures, and as a result there were rumors about surveillance," the official said. "He didn't participate in those activities, and didn't see anything in his direct experience that would have substantiated the rumors. ... Part of his job was ensuring Westerners at the hospital understood and obeyed Saudi laws."

Feteih could not be located to comment. The Saudi Embassy declined to comment, but a source familiar with the government probe said officials concluded that Feteih and the security staff were abusive toward staff members and that "management of the hospital was horrendous."

The turmoil at the huge King Faisal hospital began when Feteih took over in the early 1980s, the former employees said. Previously, administrators at the facility allowed the mostly Western staff to date and drink alcohol if they were discreet.

But Feteih had the security staff strictly enforce separation of the sexes when it came to some women, according to the medical personnel who worked there.

In addition to Jones, Bailey and Queen, the events concerning Kerik and the security staff were corroborated by these former hospital employees: Dan Mackey, a doctor now living in Georgia; John Froude, who practices medicine in upstate New York; Dennis Daughters, who lives in Florida; William Larkworthy, a doctor, and his wife, nurse Maria Larkworthy, who live in Europe; former medical technician Peter Rodenburgh in Canada; and two former hospital employees who did not want to be identified.

The controversies came to a head in November 1983, when William Larkworthy got into an argument with a nurse the morning after he had people over at his home to play bridge and drink homemade wine, said several of those interviewed. Several former employees said Feteih intensely disliked the Larkworthys and ordered the security staff to investigate the doctor's behavior that day.

Feteih sent security men to question William Larkworthy, according to hospital documents obtained by The Washington Post. They declared him drunk — an assertion Larkworthy denies — and searched his home, finding beer and wine. The security staff handed him over to Saudi security, a move the former employees said was unique in their experience. Within days, the Larkworthys were deported.

Kerik was a lead investigator on the case, according to hospital documents. The Larkworthys, Mackey and other former employees said the case was trumped up because of Feteih's dislike of them.

When the Saudi secret police questioned Kerik, he wrote in his book, they took him to a nondescript building, and armed guards surrounded him.

They "asked me about what security services I provided for Dr. Feteih. Were we tapping phones? Doing surveillance? The allegations were cryptic, and at the same time ludicrous, but even as I tried to ignore them the scandal grew, and intrigue and treachery multiplied everywhere around us. It was nearly impossible to figure out the angles and who might be playing which side."

He recalled denying accusations of wiretapping and snooping for Feteih.