For years, terrorism investigator Jean Charles Brisard has pursued financial ties which Yeslam bin Laden might have had with his half-brother, Usama. This month, a French judge decided in Brisard's favor, which could result in a public trial and possibly important disclosures about the sources of Usama bin Laden's funds.

In 2004, a French magistrate ordered an investigation into financial transfers between firms run by Yeslam Binladin (his preferred spelling), who manages assets of the family’s Saudi Binladin Group (SBG). According to a news account at the time, "Although he denied having had any contact with his half-brother for the past 20 years, the paper said, documents held by Swiss banking authorities suggest that Yeslam and Osama bin Laden held a joint account in Switzerland between 1990 and 1997, according to Jean-Charles Brisard - a private investigator hired by families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks." The judge acted after learning of a possible transfer of 241 million euros ($300 million) in 2000 from a SBG company account in Geneva through Paris and eventually to an account belonging to Usama bin Laden and a Pakistani. Yeslam Binladin told NBC News in July 2004 that he had not seen his half-brother in 20 years.

You can see a letter from UBS in German (pages 3 and 4 of the Acrobat file - the original letter) and the English translation (pages 1 and 2 of the file) about the existence of the account held by Yeslam and Usama bin Laden. Note the paragraphs near the bottom of the first page of the German version (page 3 of the file), discussing the existence of the joint account and that it existed until October 9, 1997. The English translation accidentally omits the year "1997' in that sentence (bottom of page 1 of the file).

A year after the investigation was expanded, Binladin gave an interview in which he gave derogatory comments abut Brisard's research, after which Brisard filed his defamation complaint (see interview in French here). Parisian judge Michele Ganascia ruled on tha complaint last week, ordering Binladin, the author of the interview, and the director of the weekly magazine to stand trial under the complaint. You can read the court's trial order here (in French). The trial could provide the first judicial determination of the allegations, since the investigation ordered in 2004 ended after Switzerland refused to turn over requested bank documents.