Bahraom’s Prince Kalifa dies age 84
Bahrain’s Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa (84) who had been receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic in the United States, died as per Bahrain’s state-run news agency.
The prince who represented an older style of Gulf leadership, one that granted patronage and favours for support of the Sunni Al Khalifa family, has his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries complete with a marina and a park that had peacocks and Gazelle roaming on its grounds.
Prince Khalifa was born into the Al Khalifa dynasty that for more than two centuries has ruled Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf whose name in Arabic means the “two seas”. The son of Bahrain’s former ruler, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa who ruled from 1942 to 1961, the prince learned governance at his father’s side as the island remained a British protectorate.
Bahrain gained its independence from Britain in 1971. Under an informal arrangement, Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa who took power in 1961, handled the island’s diplomacy and ceremonial duties while Prince Khalifa ran the government and economy. The years that followed saw Bahrain develop rapidly to move beyond its dependence on dwindling oil reserves. Manama at that time served as what Dubai in the United Arab Emirates ultimately became, a regional financial, service, and tourism hub. The opening of the King Fahd causeway in 1986 gave the island nation its first land link with its rich and powerful neighbour, Saudi Arabia, and offered an escape for Westerners in the Kingdom who wanted to enjoy Bahrain’s alcohol-soaked nightclubs and beaches.
Prince Khalifa increasingly saw his name entangled in corruption allegations, such a major foreign corruption practices case against aluminium producer Alcoa o9ver using a London based middleman to facilitate bribes for Bahraini officials. Alcoa agreed to pay $384million in fines to the U.S. government to settle the case in 2014.
The US Embassy in Manama similarly had its own suspicions about Prince Khalifa, writing in cables that the prince had “ off-the-books access to income from the state-owned enterprises” such as the Bahrain Petroleum and Aluminium Bahrain, the country’s aluminium producer