Bahrain Prime Minister "Mr. 10 Percent
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Bahrain's longtime prime minister, uncle of Amir Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, was widely nicknamed "Mr. 10 Percent", per John Kiriakou, for allegedly requiring a 10 percent cash cut on business deals done in the country: "You want to do business in Bahrain, 10 percent in cash in the Prime Minister's pocket."

A cold reception

Kiriakou says the prime minister disliked him intensely, having learned Kiriakou had interviewed Shia uprising leader Abdul Amir Al-Jamri and his family for a human rights report. During a chance encounter in an elevator at Bahrain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the prime minister singled Kiriakou out in the receiving line, refusing to release his handshake while remarking pointedly, "You've been very busy in our little country."

"The definition of corruption"

Kiriakou characterizes him as cold, mean, cunning, calculating, and "the definition of corruption," while nonetheless crediting him with running the country during the period it became the banking center of the Middle East, after banks fled Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.

Bahrain's national motto, painted on water towers across the country, was "Allah, al-Watan, wal-Amir", "God, the nation, and the Emir", explicitly omitting the prime minister, reflecting his sidelined status in the succession: the Amir's son, Crown Prince Hamad, and then Hamad's son, Salman, were destined to inherit power, not the prime minister's line.

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa
- Bahrain Posting (1994,1996)
- Bahrain Intifada (1994)
