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The British woman who has become the daughter-in-law of Osama bin Laden said yesterday that she hoped to use the enormous international interest in their relationship to campaign for peace in the Middle East.
Jane Felix-Browne said that she had been overwhelmed by the response after The Times revealed yesterday that she had married a son of the al-Qaeda leader.
Mrs Felix-Browne, 51, married Omar Ossama bin Laden, 27, in April after a holiday romance and is now preparing to apply for a visa so that he can visit Britain.
The grandmother and parish councillor returned to Moulton in Cheshire this month to try to formalise her marriage through the Saudi Arabian embassy in London.
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“I am trying to get everything organised in Saudi to get the marriage legalised over there,” she said. “Everybody over there knows we are married but there is a political situation. For the son of Osama bin Laden to marry a Westerner is very, very unusual.”
Mrs Felix-Browne is travelling to the Middle East today but will be unable to meet her husband as she is still awaiting a visa for Saudi Arabia and his passport is being held by the authorities. She insists that her husband does not support terrorism and has not seen his father since 2000, when they both lived in Afghanistan during the period when it was controlled by the Taleban.
“The only reason I would like to meet his father is to ask, ‘Did you do it [the September 11 attacks] and if you did, why?’ ” she said. “I want to understand why it happened because it was a tragic event which led to tens of thousands of other people dying.”
She hopes to use her position as the daughter-in-law of the world’s most wanted terrorist to help to promote peace in the Middle East.
“I knew there will be interest because the son of the most wanted man in the world is married to a British woman,” she said. “If I can do anything because of who I am married to and try to end some of the fighting in the world then I will do it.
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“Omar trusts me and has supported me is speaking publicly about our marriage and about our plans to campaign for peace. I know a lot about Middle East politics and believe there should be peace in the whole of the world, the same as Omar.”
Her husband, a scrap metal dealer who lives in Jeddah, said that he had been surprised by the level of interest in his marriage.