François Genoud (26 October 1915 – 30 May 1996) was a noted Swiss financier and a principal benefactor of the Nazi diaspora through the ODESSA escape network and supporter of Middle Eastern militant groups during the post-World War II 20th century.
"[1] His friends included militant Carlos the Jackal, one-time Gestapo agent and Interpol head Paul Dickopf, SS general Karl Wolff, Nazi Economy Minister Hjalmar Schacht, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini and Palestinian militant Wadie Haddad.
[1] He joined the pro-Nazi National Front in 1934, and two years later he travelled to Palestine where he met the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini.
[5] Nazi hunters such as Serge Klarsfeld and Simon Wiesenthal, journalist David Lee Preston, and others have asserted that his role as a benefactor for surviving National Socialist interests goes much deeper, offering evidence that Genoud was no less than the principal financial manager of the hidden Swiss assets of the Third Reich after World War II.
[4] While in Egypt in the 1950s, through contacts in Gamal Abdel Nasser's government,[6] he was introduced to the leaders of the Algerian Liberation Front, which he would eventually finance by 1954 after originally supplying weapons.
[4] He was a close associate of Dr. George Habash and Jacques Vergès, and in September 1969, he contributed finances for the legal expenses of three Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine following their attack on an El Al flight in Zurich, where he personally sat at their defense table.
The PFLP called for the release of both Bréguet and Leila Khalid, part of the Che Guevara Commando Unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, together in 1970.
[10] He was closely associated with Ali Hassan Salameh, providing him medical care,[4] and he also bankrolled Ayatollah Khomeini's exile in France when Iran was governed by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.