France tightens steps to prevent one of Osama bin Laden’s sons from returning

PARIS (AP) — France’s interior minister said Tuesday he has taken additional steps against any effort by one of the sons of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to return to France.

Omar bin Laden had been living in France’s Normandy region but left the country in October 2023 after French authorities withdrew his residency papers and ordered him out, the Interior Ministry said. At the time, authorities also barred him from returning to France for two years, the ministry added.

In a post Tuesday on the social media platform X, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said he imposed an additional ban to ensure that Omar bin Laden “will not be able to return to France for any reason whatsoever.”

French daily Le Parisien reported that Omar bin Laden now lives in Qatar.

It said he had previously been living since 2016 in the Orne region of Normandy with his British wife and had been working as an artist. The newspaper said that last week he lost a legal battle to overturn the ban on him returning to France.

Retailleau said French authorities had ordered him out of the country for social media posts deemed sympathetic of terrorism.

His father Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was killed in a U.S. commando operation by U.S. Navy SEALs in 2011 in Pakistan.