Paris:
Osama bin Laden's son Omar has been denied a visa to promote his new book in France and elsewhere in Europe, his French publisher said on Thursday.
The Qaida chief's fourth eldest son had planned to travel to Paris for the release tomorrow of "Osama bin laden: A Family Portrait", which denounces his father's murderous ways. The book was co-written with his mother Najwa, a 51-year-old Syrian woman and the first of Osama's five wives, and American journalist Jean Sasson, said a spokesman for the publishers Denoel.
"The countries of the (25-country) Schengen zone decided to reject his request for a visa," said the spokesman for Denoel. "As of Tuesday night, France had not decided whether to grant him a visa that would be valid on its territory. Since then, there has been no word," he said. "This is taking much longer than usual and the book is due out in bookshops tomorrow."
In his book, the 29-year-old Omar chronicles life in the family of the world's most wanted man, as one of 20 children. Najwa and bin Laden were married in Saudi Arabia in 1974 and the family then moved to Sudan and later Afghanistan where Al-Qaida was headquartered before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Liberation newspaper reported that Omar was currently in Qatar after being turned back from Spain and deported from Egypt, all in the same week.