Published 24 June 2004 13:19


Yeslam and Carmen bin Ladin in the garden in Jidda with the daughters Wafah, to the right, och Nadja. In the middle Yeslam’s mother whose face Carmen bin Ladin has chosen to conceal at the publishing of her book.

Carmen bin Ladin’s brother-in-law
blasted World Trade Center

She is sister-in-law to the most wanted terrorist in the world, Usama bin Ladin. In an exclusive SvD-interview Carmen bin Ladin gives an exceptional insight into the family. She describes Usama as ”stern and rabidly religious”. She talks about the clan’s support to Usama – and what it means to live with and by the name of bin Ladin.

GENEVA,Schweitz
- I never thought my brother-in-law would go as far as to blast World Trade Center into the air. But when I heard the news I wasn’t surprised.
When Carmen bin Ladin articulates the words, it sounds almost surrealistically. But then her life is exceptionally, with close to ten years in Saudi Arabia at the heart of the bin Ladin clan.

We meet at a luxury hotel on the Geneva Lake , a stone’s throw from the villa where Carmen bin Ladin lives with the daughters after she divorced from her husband Yeslam bin Ladin. Both of them nowadays living in Geneva and fighting out a bitter divorce suit.
Carmen bin Ladin chain-smoking Vogue Extra Lights, and giving a fragile and shy impression. But at the same time she is kind and attentive.
- I’m under strong pressure, and very tired, she says somewhat excusing and waves with the white cigarette making the ashes flying all over the elegant leather jacket.
Who wouldn’t feel under pressure with such a name and kinship, I reflect to myself.

How is it to live with the name  bin Ladin?
– Pure hell after 11 September. It is a plague-stricken name and you are treated like that. I always get stuck in pass controls and cashier's desk, and treated with suspiciousness.
– bin Ladin is synonymously with terror and death. No one wants to be associated with such a family. Though sometimes people thinks I’m joking and asks ”bin Ladin? As in... bin Ladin?”.
She has learnt to be practical. If she is to reserve a table at a restaurant or do the hair it is ”Carmen” doing it. No restaurant has a table for four bin Ladins, she clarifies.

So why not changing name?
– That would send a signal we had something to hide. The truth will always come out. And I don’t want to let my three daughters down, leaving them with the name.
Carmen bin Ladin has three daughters together with Yeslam – ”no son to his big disappointment”. They have taken their bumps after the terror attack. 27-years old  Wafah has been threatened to life several times, after information claiming she was knowledgeable about the attack and she left New York the week before . She was then studying at the Columbia-university.
-Fiddlesticks of course. But the rumour is persistent.


Some of the bin Ladin siblings on a trip to Pacific Palisades in California circa 1975. In her book Carmen bin Ladin writes ” with their jeans and afro-hair they looked exactly like Americans – exteriorly.” From left Ahmed, Shafik, Ragaih, Yahia, Yeslam and Ibrahim bin Ladin.

It was a hot summerday in Geneva 1973 when her life took a new turn. Carmen Dufour, with a Swiss father and Iranian mother, met the charming and polite Yeslam bin Ladin who was on holiday in Europe .
– He was handsome and intelligent and I was adventurous and impulsive.
Yeslam is Usama bin Ladin’s big brother in the family of 25 brothers and 29 sisters. The dynasty’s head, sheik Muhammed, had 22 wives and advanced from poor illiterate from Jemen to Saudi Arabia's most powerful businessman with the construction empire bin Ladin Group. The company that was approved of by the king and got exclusive rights to refurbish Islam’s holy cities Mecka and Medina – a great honour for the clan.
- Though all children lived in the shade of their great father, says Carmen bin Ladin.

Yeslam, regarded as the clan’s financial genius, managed during many years in the 1990^th’s a Swiss bank account belonging to Usama bin Ladin, and the brothers still talk to each other, according to Carmen bin Ladin.
Yeslam bin Ladin has been a subject for investigations on money laundering in Switzerland , and domiciliary visits has been carried out in his villa in Cannes . SvD has without success searched him for a comment at his office in Geneva .
- Usama of course doesn’t ask for some millions in order to blast an embassy. It doesn’t work like that. The request can concern money ”to spread the message of Islam around the world, tells Carmen bin Ladin.

The love story with Yeslam, who showered his woman with jewels and furs, brought about marriage in Saudi Arabia 1974: ”an arid and inhospitable country where women look like black triangles and are treated like animals”, according to Carmen bin Ladin.
The couple moved to   California two years for studying. But then the oil crisis broke out and Yeslam bin Ladin wanted to go back to Saudi Arabia to take part in the family’s successes. A springday 1976 they landed in Jidda , and moved in to  ”the bin Ladin-village”, a seven kilometer area where only the clan lived.
- In our house there were so many showy chandeliers dangling that it looked like a lamp shop.

A life started, gradually becoming the sheer nightmare. Carmen bin Ladin tells how she as a clan wife never could go anywhere without veil , not even in her own garden, and only were allowed to spend time with the other bin Ladin-wives who ”never had red a book, only talked about the family and recited the Koran”.
– The eternal tea drinking with these uninformed sisters-in-law was an agony. I tried to behave as it behooves a bin Ladin. But my life was a prison.

I ask Carmen bin Ladin to tell me about her famous brother-in-law, and she recollects particularly two events. One was when it unexpectedly, a summer day, was someone ringing the doorbell. There Usama bin Ladin was standing. at that time he was “only one in the row of brothers”. But he enjoyed great esteem within the family because of his deep religiousness. Carmen bin Ladin describes him as “tall and reserved” with some sort of commanding presence and incredible charisma”.
– It was noticed immediately when Usama entered a room.

The chock, though, was big when Usama bin Ladin entered and the beautiful sister-in-law spontaneously opened the door, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, and invited. He went furious, turned away the face and gesticulated indignantly.
- I should of course have understood not to expose my face. I felt silly and like a fish out of water, like an alien.
The Al Qaida-leader was mentioned as the most pious in the family, she says.
– But never anyone said his religious faith was disproportionate and passing.
Writings in western media about Usama’s time as lecher at Beirut's discos when a youth, does not jibe, thinks Carmen bin Ladin.
Not either can Usama be found on the famous photography of a group young Bin Ladin-brothers in Sweden . The boy who is indicated on the pictures is Salah, not Usama, says Carmen bin Ladin.

During a picnic at the family’s country residence Teaf  she got yet another dose of the borther-in-law’s  fundamentalism. It was almost 40 degrees outside, and Usama bin Ladin’s wife Najwah desperately trying to give their baby Abdullah something to drink with the help of a spoon. Abdullah was close to dehydration, Carmen bin Ladin recollects. So she reached out a feeder with water. But seeing this, Usama bin Ladin lost his temper, and said the child mustn’t drink from a feeder.
– Rubber nipples was against Usama’s religious principles. Najwah was sad but  powerless. Fact is nobody dared to meddle.
– To Usama the child’s suffering was less important than a verse in the Koran from the 600^th’s. The others in the family felt such a deep  veneration for him that they didn’t dare other than agree.

This incident with the pious brother-in-law became a turning point for Carmen bin Ladin. She shuddered at the thought of having Usama as her daughters’ guardian if Yeslam should die. She started to  loathe more and more in the Saudi society; the oppression of women, the wallowing in luxury, the foreign newspapers with the black crossing-outs, the thought the daughters could be married away to someone the clan considered appropriate.
- The Sauds are like the Talibans but in  luxury wrapping. And the  mentality is never shaken in the foundations. This shows the  rising extremism in Saudi Arabia of today.

After the revolution in Iran 1979 the religiousness grow stronger all around the Middle East. when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan the same year all Saudi Arabia revolted in protests – above all Usama bin Ladin, his sister-in-law recollects.
- My ortodox brother-in-law travelled to Afghanistan to help. Soon he became a key figure blasting for tunnels in the mountains and building shelters for the Afghani warriors, she says.
– Usama made himself a name. He wasn't only number seventeen in the rows of brothers anymore. Now he was admired . He was regarded as a Saudi hero, and become king Fahd's protegé.

The contacts between the bin Ladin-clan and the Saudi royal family have always been intensive, both privately and professionaly. Even Usama bin Ladin already in the 1990^th’s had close contact with the heir to the throne Abdallah, according to Carmen bin Ladin.
There were disputes, especially inside the bin Ladin-empire – ”but it always ended up with supporting each other and showing a united front”, she says
- Some inside the family have condemned  the terrorist attack against  World Trade Center. But no one has condemned Usama. The family bounds are holy; a bin Ladin never turns his back on his brother.

She thinks the clan’s moral and economic support to the brother-in-law continues. Even if the al-Qaida-leader has lost his Saudi citizenship, the family has probably not deprived him of his annual yield from the company, she says. Many of Usama bin Ladin’s 16 children additionally still work in the company and have not been thrown out  after the terrorist attack.
– Inside the clan you can be rejected for not being enough muslim,  never for being too much muslim.

– Certainly Usama is alive, says Carmen bin Ladin who is convinced he will strike back again.
If he should be dead the family would have released  a news of a death to the closest members of the clan. Even to her and the daughters, even though the bin Ladin-clan has declared war after she wrote a book which is hardly flattering for the family and Saudi Arabia .
– I receive threats and  unpleasant telephone calls. And for sure I’m afraid. It is a high price I’m paying for telling about the bin Laden-clan. But it is worth it.