Film: Osama's brother talks

2004-07-29 07:20

Paris - A half-brother of Osama bin Laden says he enjoyed most of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 except for what he called the "inaccuracies" about his family.

"It's a moving film," Yeslam Binladin, a Geneva-based tycoon and one of the al-Qaeda leader's 54 siblings, said in an interview with the latest edition of French magazine VSD.

"I even laughed at times," said Binladin, adding, "but a lot less when he states errors or inaccuracies about my family, knowing perfectly well that he's deceiving the public."

In the film, Moore states that US President George W Bush tried to cover up his family's longtime business and personal ties to the family of Osama bin Laden and other prominent Saudis because many of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

One of his main points is that the US administration helped 142 Saudis - including two dozen members of bin Laden's family - fly out of the United States two days after the September 11 attacks, even though commercial air space was closed.

"That's false and can be verified by anyone," said the Saudi-born Binladin, who intentionally spells his name differently from Osama, the prime suspect in the September 11 attacks. "They benefited from no exceptional authorisation to leave American territory."

Binladin, who has lived in Geneva many years and has Swiss citizenship, told the magazine that his US-based family members flew into Geneva on September 20 before taking off again for Saudi Arabia.

The movie also states that several family members attended a 2001 wedding of one of Osama bin Laden's sons in Afghanistan - a claim Binladin says is exaggerated.

"Nobody from my family was at this wedding in Afghanistan except for the mother of Osama," said Binladin. Yeslam and Osama are among the 54 sons and daughters of the late Saudi construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden and his 22 wives.

Binladin, the founder of Geneva-based financial company Sico, said the last time he saw his younger half brother was before Osama left Saudi Arabia in 1981.

- AP