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Mrs. Bin Laden Talks to Asharq Al-Awsat | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Mrs. Bin Laden Talks to Asharq Al-Awsat


Mrs. Bin Laden Talks to Asharq Al-Awsat

Mrs. Bin Laden Talks to Asharq Al-Awsat

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Zaina, the British wife of Osama Bin Laden’s son, revealed that she is currently staying with friends in a Sharm el-Sheikh resort.

This, she says, is not to escape harassment by the British tabloids press, but rather to undergo eye surgery in Egypt.

Zaina Mohammed, as she now prefers to be called, also revealed that her first husband was a Saudi student. She was 16 years of age when she married him, while he was 19. “The marriage failed,” she said, “because he had refused to tell his parents about his British bride.” She declined to comment, however, when asked about details such as his name, or if she had had any children with him.

She stated, in a telephone interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, that in Egypt she feels completely safe. She also confirmed that her relationship with her husband Omar is still on and is “blissful”. In fact, she was waiting for a telephone call from him right after her phone interview with Asharq Al-Awsat was over, she told us. She and Omar even spend close to 15 hours chatting to one over the internet.

Regarding her marriage, she revealed that her son was her legal guardian in the marriage ceremony and her witnesses were male relatives from her husband’s side; while she waited with the women of the family in an adjacent hall, as per Arab and Islamic customs.

British tabloid “News of the World” ran an exposé with photos, yesterday, of Zaina’s past as “Jane Felix Brown.” A British tabloid offered her neighbours thousands of dollars in exchange for details of her life with her 5 ex-husbands. She says: “A person whom I regret to call an old friend sold out to the tabloids, even when I trusted her with my innermost secrets.”

“The reason,” she believes, “that such publications run these stories is that they are trying to wreck my relationship with Omar.”

Zaina retorted to rumours that the issue of her paternal great grandfather being Jewish was a secret she hid from Omar by saying that this is something her husband always knew. “I never hid a single detail of my past from him, from the moment our relationship began.”

Contrary to popular belief, Zaina contends that her husband is open-minded. She claims that he repeatedly says the following to her: “It doesn’t matter to me that your great grandfather is Jewish or even Catholic. All that matters to me is that you are Muslim and you believe in the oneness of Allah.”