France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Tuesday announced the ban of Omar bin Laden from a Normandy village he has been living in over accusations of glorifying terrorism on social media. Retailleau made this statement on X accusing Omar bin Laden of “posting comments on his social media accounts in 2023, which made an apology for terrorism”. According to the Minister’s post: “I am today issuing an administrative ban on Mr. Omar Bin Laden, the eldest son of the international terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Mr. Bin Laden, who has lived in Orne for several years as the spouse of a British national, posted comments on his social networks in 2023 that were an apology for terrorism. “As a result, the Prefect of Orne issued an OQTF and obtained Mr. Bin Laden’s departure. The courts have confirmed the regularity of this decision taken for national security. The administrative ban on the territory guarantees that Mr. Bin Laden will not be able to return to France for any reason whatsoever.” He described the matter “a decision of national security”, Retailleau disclosed “the administrative ban ensures that Mr. bin Laden cannot return to France, for any reason whatsoever.” However, Le Parisien newspaper reported that Omar bin Laden now lives in Qatar, adding that bin Laden had launched an appeal against his deportation, which was denied by French justice on Friday. Bin Laden had been living in Normandy with his wife — a woman identified as a UK national — since 2016. According to the local press, the pair regularly travelled between the UK and France. Retailleau’s decision comes as he is set to meet Tuesday with 21 prefects, each responsible for a different French département, to discuss immigration. The talks will focus more specifically on how to deal more efficiently with the legal measure called “obligation to leave French territory,” or OQTF, which is primarily used to deport foreign nationals. The murder of a 19-year-old student, Philippine, who was raped in an affluent neighborhood of Paris in late September, has inflamed the debate around the use of the OQTF measure in France. The alleged perpetrator — a 22-year-old Moroccan man — was already subject to an OQTF following a conviction for rape in 2021. According to local newspaper Le Publicateur Libre, a controversial tweet was posted by bin Laden on 2 May 2023, the date of his father’s birthday. The post from the now-deleted account @omarbinladin1 read: “History is written only with the blood of these people — to tell the story of these martyrs who made history, built nations and brought glory. Their blood is the lifeline of our faith until judgment day. Rest in peace.” Investigative journalists questioned bin Laden about the matter in an award-winning podcast, “Hechos Reales,” or True Facts. “A person from another country managed to get the password of my Twitter account and posted a Tweet using my name. They were not my words. I reported the Tweet to Twitter and after a week or so, the account was thankfully blocked,” bin Laden said. “I no longer have access to my Twitter account,” he added, “so I was unable to remove it myself. I want to tell people I condemn terrorism and violence with all my heart”, he added. Omar is the son of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born founder of the al-Qaeda terrorist group and the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people in the biggest terror attacks on US soil in 2001. Although Omar bin Laden began training in al-Qaeda camps at the age of 14, he left the terrorist organisation in 2000. In a 2008 interview with ABC News, he said, “my father is very kind man… and he was very sorry when he did something like 11 September.” “He believed if he brought two buildings down, maybe some people, few would die… But millions other would be saved. He believed that”, Omar added. Omar bin Laden went on to assert that he did not agree with his father’s actions “I believe what he did was wrong.”
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