Washington | Tuesday
OSAMA bin Laden’s half brother told CNN on Monday that the world’s most sought-after terrorist suspect is not only alive, but does not suffer from a kidney disease that would require dialysis.
Sheikh Ahmad also said his brother Osama was not behind the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States. “He is my brother. I know him. I lived with him for years. I know how much he fears God,” Sheikh Ahmad, who did not want his family name used, said in an interview with CNN.
Sheikh Ahmad and bin Laden have the same mother but different fathers. He said their mother learned through a telephone call three weeks ago that Osama was well, without revealing the source of the call.
The bin Laden family owns a large construction company in Saudi Arabia and have criticised Osama for condemning the Saudi royal family for siding with the United States against Iraq in the Gulf War.
Sheikh Ahmad (36) owns an advertising production company that is part of the bin Laden empire.
He told CNN that he visited bin Laden a few times in Sudan, and last year in Afghanistan. He said he was “very worried” about his brother after the United States declared him a wanted man, but that his concerns have since eased.
“It’s easier now. We got used to it. We know any minute it’s possible that we will hear some bad news,” he told CNN.
Ahmad deplored the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania that killed more than 3 000 people.
“Any Muslim wouldn’t accept this,” he told CNN.
There is “no way,” he said, that Osama could have been involved. Sheikh Ahmad said he and his mother last saw Osama bin Laden at the wedding of one of his sons in Afghanistan in January 2001.
It was there, he added, that Osama told him that reports saying he needed kidney dialysis were false.
“He loved his family and friends, gatherings. He especially adores his mother. First comes God, then his mother,” Sheikh Ahmad said.
That is the side of his half brother that Sheikh Ahmad said he wanted to share, in spite of what others may think of him.
“We grew up together in the same house,” he said. “Osama is known for being a simple person, very merciful, a very soft heart. It’s impossible that anyone would sit with him and not like him or get bored. Frankly, Osama is very close to the heart and very popular.” – AFP