MADRID, Spain — Spain rejected an asylum request from a son of Osama bin Laden on Wednesday after deciding he had not met the conditions necessary for him to remain.
Omar Osama bin Laden, 27, flew to Spain earlier this week and remains in a transit area at Madrid’s Barajas Airport, an Interior Ministry official said. He has 24 hours to appeal the government’s decision.
“The Interior Ministry has not accepted the request for asylum because this does not meet the conditions necessary for entering Spain,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy. The official would not elaborate or discuss the younger bin Laden’s reasons for seeking asylum.
Omar Osama bin Laden is a metals trader who had been living in Cairo with his wife. He has not renounced his father but has said he wants to be an “ambassador for peace” between the Muslim world and the West.
The Spanish official said the government usually seeks a recommendation from the U.N. refugee agency in asylum request cases and he said the agency also recommended against asylum.
Omar Osama bin Laden — one of the al-Qaeda leader’s 19 children — arrived in Madrid Monday on a flight from Cairo. He had been traveling on a Saudi passport.
The younger bin Laden caused a tabloid storm last year after marrying a British woman, 52-year-old Jane Felix-Brown, who has since taken the name Zaina al-Sabah. She said in May that Omar Osama bin Laden had been denied a British residency request.
In media interviews, Omar Osama bin Laden has declined to directly condemn his father or the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, instead condemning all violent acts and saying simply that he has a different approach to problems than his father.
Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghan border region.
