Billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi spent a lifetime using his connections to make deals for himself. He is now making a comeback, as someone selling those connections

He was a small man, with a neatly trimmed black moustache, seated in a corner, leaning forward on his walking stick, smiling, sipping Scotch from a glass that seemed too large for his frail hands. His face brightened with a smile as he reminisced about the dictator’s wife who once locked herself in the bathroom of his private jet and the star-studded, five-day extravaganza he threw for his 50th birthday.

Oh, the memories of a fallen billionaire arms trader.

“My personal philosophy is I don’t regret matters that happen, good or bad,” said the man, Adnan M. Khashoggi, who is 74 years old and these days prefers to be remembered as ‘Mr. Fix It’, rather than the arms dealer involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. “I just accept this as my destiny. It’s a personal attitude.”

Khashoggi has been linked to—but never convicted in—almost every major scandal of the late 20th century: Wedtech (the American scandal in the late 1980s), the scandal involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in the 80s, the indictment of the Marcoses in the Philippines, as well as Iran-Contra (another scandal during the Reagan days when senior US figures arranged for arms sales to Iran). He is a favourite of conspiracy buffs, who have connected him to such things as the death of Princess Diana (her boyfriend at the time, Dodi al-Fayed, was his nephew) and to voting irregularities in Florida in the 2000 presidential election (a former employee was a local election official).

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