Hospitality Vs. Questionable Conduct

By JANICE CASTRO/

Did JESSE JACKSON act as a go-between for the criminal Bank of Credit and Commerce International in its dealings with African central banks? That's what Nazir Chinoy, the former B.C.C.I. Paris chief who is a federal prisoner, told a Senate subcommittee last week, but Jackson vigorously denies the tale. Chinoy testified that B.C.C.I. paid Jackson's Paris hotel bills during a 1985 trip in which Jackson also visited several African heads of state and added that Jackson offered to help B.C.C.I. establish business relationships with them. Jackson notes that at the time most people thought B.C.C.I. was legitimate. Says he: "We did not do any business. He did not offer to do any business, and I did not seek to do any." As for the lavish hotel bills: "It was an act of hospitality."

With reporting by Wendy Cole