Vatican denies bin Laden claims
20/03/2008 19:01  - (SA)  

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Vatican City - The Vatican on Thursday rejected an accusation by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that Pope Benedict XVI is deeply involved in a "new crusade" to deride Islam.

The charge is "not new or surprising," Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi told the ANSA news agency, dismissing as "totally unfounded the specific accusation" that the Church backed the publication in Europe on Wednesday of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

In an audio message on Wednesday addressed to the "intelligent ones" in the European Union, a voice purported to be bin Laden's said that publishing the "insulting drawings" was a greater crime than Western forces targeting Muslim villages and killing women and children.

The message, warning Europe of a "reckoning" over the cartoons, said that they were part of "the framework of a new crusade" in which the Roman Catholic pope "has played a large, lengthy role".

Lombardi said: "The pope and the papal council for inter-religious dialogue have denounced the satirical campaign against Islam on more than one occasion."

- AFP

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