ABU DHABI Ñ The United Arab Emirates has acknowledged the possibility that its financial institutions were employed to fund the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

UAE officials have confirmed U.S. suspicions that a series of questionable transactions were completed that might have helped the 19 suicide hijackers in the United States days before the Sept. 11 attacks. The transactions were between UAE financial institutions and a bank in Florida, Middle East Newsline reported.

UAE Central Bank governor Sultan Nasser Sweidi said authorities have found seven transactions prior to Sept. 11 from Marwan Al Sheiki, a key suspect in the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center. Four of the transactions took place during a six-month period last year from UAE banks to Sheiki's bank account in Florida.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Sweidi said the sum of the transactions amounted to $100,000. Sweidi refused to identify the person or institution who sent the money to Al Sheiki. The UAE official said he was banned from revealing the name of the Florida bank that received the money. But industry sources said Al Sheiki used the HSPC bank, maintaining an account there from 1997 until 2000.

UAE officials agreed that most of the transactions to agents of Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden were largely unreported and conducted through money-changers in the Gulf. The method is known as "Hawala."

Sweidi denied media reports that Mohammed Ata, believed to be the second leading suspect of the Bin Laden suicide attacks in the United States, used the UAE for financial transactions. The UAE bank governor said no bank account or transaction contained Ata's name.

The United States has urged the UAE and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries to tighten banking regulations, particularly those of Islamic banks. But GCC countries have encountered opposition from Islamic movements that have benefited from the largely unreported flow of money to and from the region.

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