Omar bin Laden

Omar bin Osama bin Mohammed bin 'Awad bin Laden (عمر بن أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, ʿUmar bin ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; born March 1, 1981), better known as Omar bin Laden, is a Saudi artist, author, cultural ambassador, and businessman, and fourth-eldest son of Osama bin Laden, with his first cousin and first wife Najwa Ghanhem (see Bin Laden family).

He has been living in Normandy, France for several years.

Earlier inaccurate reports described Omar and his brother Abdallah bin Laden as nephews or cousins of Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden was born the grandson of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, the founder of one of the wealthiest non-royal families in Saudi Arabia, and the son of Osama bin Laden, whose partisan activities shaped his childhood.

Bin Laden accompanied his father on his exile to Sudan from 1991 to 1996, and then to Afghanistan after that.

He said that he trained in al-Qaeda camps beginning at the age of 14, but after training with al-Qaeda for six years and sharing a house with al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, he left al-Qaeda in 2000 because he did not want to be associated with killing civilians and his father Osama did not object.

Bin Laden stated that he had not been in contact with his father since leaving Afghanistan in 2000.

Bin Laden ran his own company in Jeddah prior to 2006 as a contractor and scrap metal dealer.

Jeddah, a major city and important transit port for Saudi Arabia, is the site of the headquarters of the Saudi Binladen Group and has been reported to be "truly" ruled by Bakr bin Laden.

Omar bin Laden married Jane Felix-Browne, who also goes by the name Zaina Mohamed Al-Sabah, a parish councillor from Moulton, near Northwich in Cheshire in the United Kingdom, on September 15, 2006.

The marriage was conducted in September 2006 in Islamic ceremonies in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, after which the couple spent a few months together in Jeddah before his wife returned to Britain for several weeks.

It has been reported that Felix-Browne met bin Laden while she was undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis.

They met on a horseback ride at the Giza pyramids in Egypt.

She is his second wife and 24 years older than he is, with five grandchildren.

She was aware when she married bin Laden that he had been married and divorced, with a two-year-old son.

After their wedding, Al-Sabah described the stress of bin Laden's family background: "Omar is wary of everyone. He is constantly watching people who he feels might be following him. Not without reason he is fearful of cameras. He is the son of Osama. But when we are together he forgets his life."

The couple announced their divorce in September 2007, which was said to be in response to threats to their "lives and liberty" from two unspecified sources known to them in Saudi Arabia.

At the time, Al-Sabah said she did not regard herself as divorced and that as the divorce was done under duress did not have legal standing under Sharia law.

After two weeks, they decided not to part.

The race was canceled after the killings of four French tourists near Aleg, Mauritania on Christmas Eve in 2007.

In January 2008, bin Laden applied for a British spousal immigration visa which would have permitted him to reside indefinitely at his wife's home in Moulton, Cheshire, a process which required him to provide original documentation of his divorce from his first wife.

The couple stated their desire to have a child using a surrogate mother.

One report stated the visa application was denied because bin Laden failed to provide his father's permanent address.

However, a later report by The Times of bin Laden's appeal stated that the visa had been denied by an entry clearance officer at the UK embassy in Cairo because bin Laden's entry would cause "considerable public concern."

The officer was quoted "I note that statements made during recent media interviews indicate evidence of continuing loyalty to your father, and your presence in the UK could, therefore, cause considerable public concern."

This written statement was shown to The Associated Press by the couple's legal firm, but Britain's Home Office declined to comment to the press on an individual case.

In April 2008, bin Laden and Al-Sabah said they planned to appeal the ruling, calling it "unjust and arbitrary", stating that Al-Sabah requires medical attention in Britain and that her appeal to live with him in Saudi Arabia could take years to process.

As of April 2008, bin Laden has a house in Cairo.

In January 2008, an Associated Press interview in Cairo featured bin Laden with cornrows and a black leather biker jacket promoting a 3000 mi horse race for peace across North Africa.

Bin Laden described the race as an equine counterpart to the canceled 2008 Paris-Dakar car rally, saying, "I heard the rally was stopped because of al-Qaida. I don't think they are going to stop me."

Following the murders race organizers received threats directly from heavily armed and organized groups linked to al-Qaeda, which led them to cancel the race on January 4, 2008, and soon after to plan the 2009 event for South America.

Police in Guinea-Bissau said that two of five men arrested for the crime on January 11, 2008, admitted their involvement with al-Qaeda.

Bin Laden said that his father felt that he was just trying to defend the Islamic world, and that his father was not a terrorist "because history tells you he's not".

In a January 21, 2008, CNN interview, he said, "I try and say to my father: 'Try to find another way to help or find your goal. This bomb, these weapons, it's not good to use them on anybody".

Regarding the September 11 attacks, he said, "I don't think 9/11 was right personally, but it happened. I don't think ... [the war] in Vietnam was right. I don't think what's going on in Palestine is right. I don't think what's going on in Iraq is right. If we make what is right and not right, we will make a very big list."

In 2010, Omar bin Laden told ABC News that Osama had severely beaten him when he was a child for smiling too widely.

In April 2010, bin Laden was denied a visa to promote his book Osama bin Laden: A Family Portrait in France and elsewhere in Europe.

Specifically, the countries of the Schengen zone, a block of 25 nations across Europe including Germany, France and Spain, rejected his request for a visa.

In an interview with ABC News, he said, "My father is a very kind man. And he is very sorry when he did something like 11th September."

Osama bin Laden ordered the attacks "Because he believes if he put two buildings down, maybe some people, little will die, but millions other will (be) save(d). He believed that. ... I believe he did wrong".