Bin Laden's son tables World Cup bid

 

Loveday morris

Loveday Morris

Loveday Morris is an award-winning freelance journalist currently based in Beirut and covering the unfolding crisis in Syria. She regularly contributes to the Independent

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Saturday 16 June 2012

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One of Osama bin Laden's sons is bidding for a share of the infrastructure projects to be built in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup.

Omar bin Laden, who rejected his father's lifestyle as a teenager, hopes that Qatar Bin Laden Group, the company he founded two years ago, will win several contracts in a joint vernture with a Spanish firm, Coprosa.

After controversially winning the bid to stage football's premier tournament, Qatar plans to spend £40bn on projects, including an 86,000-capacity arena designed by the British architect, Lord Foster. "There is a limited timeframe for projects in Qatar... we want to be involved as much as we can," said Mr bin Laden. As a teenager, he spent several years in Afghanistan, frequenting terror camps. He shared a house with al-Qa'ida's current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, before denouncing the group in 2000, a year before the 9/11 attacks.

He has criticised the "arbitrary" killing in May 2011 of his father in Pakistan by US forces, arguing that he should have been tried in court.

The Bin Ladens, one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest families, made their fortune in construction. The family business, the Saudi Binladin Group, is now run by Osama's brother, Bakr.

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