JEDDAH, 3 October — Interior Minister Prince Naif declared yesterday that Saudi Arabia will provide all protection to the Binladens and their relatives both within and outside the Kingdom as any other Saudi citizens.
He said Binladen family members could not be held responsible for the actions of Osama Bin Laden, whom the United States has named as chief suspect behind the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
“We are protecting the Binladen family both inside and outside as we protect any other citizen,” Prince Naif told Okaz daily. “The Binladen family in the Kingdom are Saudi citizens. They have full rights and have responsibilities like other Saudis and they should not be blamed for deviation in the behavior of one of them. We will not accept that,” Prince Naif added.
The minister’s comments followed the arrest in Turkey on Monday of a man suspected of being a brother of Osama Bin Laden. Turkish authorities later said the man, identified as Abdullah Binladen, was not Osama’s brother. The second secretary at the Saudi Embassy in Ankara, Saleh Al-Ghamdi, told the Arabic daily that he informed the Turkish security authorities that Abdullah was not Osama’s brother.
Turkish Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen said the man was a Jeddah-born student who was studying computer science at a university in northern Cyprus and has denied any relation with Osama. Abdullah was hauled in for questioning at Istanbul airport when he was traveling from Jeddah to Cyprus via Istanbul.
Asked if Osama Bin Laden’s children living in the Kingdom had also lost their citizenship, Prince Naif said: “Those who held Saudi citizenship retain them.” He said there were no contacts between Osama Bin Laden and his children in Saudi Arabia, but acknowledged that he did not know if they got in touch with their father when they traveled abroad.
The US has reported that 24 Binladen family members living or studying in the United States left the country following the Sept. 11 attacks. The head of the Binladen family in Saudi Arabia has condemned the attacks in the United States. The family several years ago disowned Osama Bin Laden because of his political activities. Saudi Arabia in 1994 stripped the dissident of his citizenship for his alleged terrorist activities.
Saudi Ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, said late Monday that most of Binladen’s relatives had come to the United States to study but were flown back to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. “We understood the high emotions. So with coordination with the FBI, we got them all out,” the ambassador said, appearing on CNN’s “Larry King Live” program. He said he knew the Binladen family as “lovely human beings” who have suffered a lot because of Osama’s activities.
