Osama bin Laden's relations die in plane crash

Osama bin Laden's relations die in plane crash

Saturday, August 1, 2015 12:18 pm


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Relations of Osama Bin Laden were among the victims when a private jet crashed in Britain, the Saudi embassy in London said Saturday in a message of condolences.

Four people died when the Saudi Arabia-registered plane ploughed into a car auction site and burst into flames in southern England on Friday. The aircraft had taken off from Milan’s Malpensa airport in Italy.

Local police said the pilot and three passengers died when the Embraer Phenom 300 jet attempted to land at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire and that no one was injured on the ground.

Embraer Phenom 300 similar to the one that crashed

Embraer Phenom 300 similar to the one that crashed


The Saudi ambassador “offered his condolences to the sons of the late Mohammed bin Laden and their relations for the grave incident of the crash of the plane carrying members of the family at Blackbushe airport,” read a statement posted on the embassy’s official Twitter account.

It did not confirm the identities of those killed. In later report, the AFP said they were bin Laden’s stepmother Raja Hashim, his sister Sanaa, the sister’s husband Zuhair Hashem, and a Jordanian pilot.

The embassy also said it would work with British authorities to investigate the incident and repatriate the bodies for burial in Saudi Arabia.

Osama Bin Laden’s father Mohammed was a construction industry magnate and his numerous descendants constitute a prominent family with wide-ranging business interests.

Mohammed Bin Laden himself died in a plane crash in Saudi Arabia in 1967.

His son Osama, the late supreme leader of the Al-Qaeda militant network, was shot dead by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011.

Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement Friday that the plane was registered in the Gulf state, and that it would work with British investigators to determine the cause of the crash.


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