Featured Image Credit: Marco Bello/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Topics: Jeffrey Epstein, Conspiracy Theories, Sex Trafficking
William Morgan
Topics: Jeffrey Epstein, Conspiracy Theories, Sex Trafficking
The release of millions of documents relating to the dead pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein has started to untangle his complicated web of well-connected wealthy clients, but they may have also just solved a longstanding mystery.
That is, what on Earth the purpose could be for the bizarre blue-striped and gold-domed building on his private Caribbean island, Little St James, with the structure sticking out like a sore thumb from the other buildings on the sex trafficker's property.
According to architectural designs submitted to the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, the building was meant to be a music pavilion, but turned out to look nothing like the sketches that were filed, NBC News reports.
It has spawned a number of conspiracy theories, but its actual original purpose has finally been revealed in the three million files released by the Department of Justice, thanks to the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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The publication of these millions of documents and thousands of videos and images has given the public a terrifying glimpse inside the life of one of the world's most prolific sex offenders - this week revealing that the bizarre building was likely a mosque.
This revelation is particularly strange considering Epstein's strong affinity with the state of Israel, with published images showing him wearing an IDF sweatshirt and in constant communication with former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
But the dead pedophile's decision to refer to the gold-domed building on his island as a 'mosque' fits with a known fascination of Epstein's - that of ancient Islamic culture and its aesthetics.
"It should look old… it will be for the inside walls, like a mosque, I would love to see examples," he wrote in one correspondence discussing tiles for the structure. It is unclear if Epstein ever used his 'mosque' for any religious purposes.
Emails from 2013 reviewed by the New York Times show that the original inspiration for the creepiest building on Little St James was actually the Yalbugah Hammam, a 500-year-old Mamluk bathhouse from Aleppo, Syria - which had distinctive striped walls and a golden dome.
Further emails from 2009 reveal that Epstein actually came up with the idea for the mosque while serving time in a Florida jail following his 2009 'sweetheart deal' for soliciting child prostitution, with the convicted pedophile engaging architects to create the Turkic-style 'hammam' bathhouse.
Indeed, the files revealed that, in addition to constantly referring to this building as his 'mosque', despite professing to be a secular Jew, Epstein had acquired a number of sacred holy relics to decorate it.
Shockingly, this includes fragments of one of the holiest objects in the whole of Islam. “We are receiving 3 pieces from the Kaaba,” his assistant wrote in an email, referring to the 'House of God' in Mecca, towards which all Muslims in the world pray every day.
Further emails from 2017, two years before he was found dead in his cell Metropolitan Correctional Center, show Epstein attempting to negotiate with Aziza Al Ahmadi, a woman who worked for the Royal Court of Saudi Arabia, over more items 'for the mosque'.
In addition to the fragments of the Kabba, these imports included an object from inside Islam's holiest site, as well as the large 'kiswa' cloth that covers it, replaced every year during Hajj.
Handwoven from 1,500 pounds of silk and 250 pounds of gold and black thread, the cloth alone is believed to be worth around $5 million. Al Ahmadi told Epstein: “The black piece was touched by minimum 10 million Muslims of different denominations, Sunni, Shia and others.
“They walk around the Kaaba seven rounds then every one tries as much as they can to touch it and they kept their prayers, wishes, tears and hopes on this piece. Hoping after that all their prayers to be accepted.”