LONDON // Three relatives of the late Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were among four people killed when a private jet crashed on landing in southern England, British police confirmed on Saturday.
The Hampshire Police force said formal postmortems were still being conducted, but that the victims were believed to be “the mother, sister and brother-in-law of the owner of the aircraft, all of whom are from the bin Laden family”. It said that all three were Saudi Arabian nationals who were visiting Britain on holiday. The plane’s Jordanian pilot also died.
Arab media and NBC News named the relatives as Osama bin Laden’s stepmother Rajaa Hashim, his sister Sana bin Laden and her husband Zuhair Hashim.
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain, Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf Bin Abdel Aziz, offered his condolences to the wealthy bin Laden family, which owns a major construction company in Saudi Arabia.
“The embassy will follow up on the incident and its circumstances with the concerned British authorities and work on speeding up the handover of the bodies of the victims to the kingdom for prayer and burial,” the ambassador said in a statement tweeted by the embassy.
Police said the Embraer Phenom 300 executive jet crashed into a car park and burst into flames while trying to land at Blackbushe Airport in southern England Friday afternoon.
The plane was flying from Malpensa Airport in Milan to the airfield about 65 kilometres south-west of London, which is used by private planes and flying clubs.
No one on the ground was hurt. Police and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch launched a joint investigation.
Andrew Thomas, who was at a car auction sales centre based at the airport, said that “the plane nosedived into the cars and exploded on impact.” He said he saw the plane and several cars in flames.
The plane’s pilot was Mazen Salem Al Dajah, a Jordanian in his late 50s. His brother Ziad said that Al Dajah’s family had been told of his death by a representative of the bin Laden family’s corporation. He said Al Dajah received his pilot’s license in California about 25 years ago and had been employed by the bin Laden family.
The bin Laden family disowned Osama in 1994 when Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship because of his militant activities. The Qaeda leader was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011.
The family is a large and wealthy one. Osama bin Laden’s billionaire father Mohammed had more than 50 children and founded the Binladen Group, a sprawling construction conglomerate awarded many major building contracts in the Sunni kingdom.
Mohammed bin Laden died in a plane crash in Saudi Arabia in 1967. One of his sons, Salem, was killed when his ultralight aircraft flew into power lines in San Antonio, Texas, in 1988.
* Associated Press
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
New UK refugee system
- A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
- Shortened leave to remain - refugees will receive 30 months instead of five years
- A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
- To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
- Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
- Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
Coffee: black death or elixir of life?
It is among the greatest health debates of our time; splashed across newspapers with contradicting headlines - is coffee good for you or not?
Depending on what you read, it is either a cancer-causing, sleep-depriving, stomach ulcer-inducing black death or the secret to long life, cutting the chance of stroke, diabetes and cancer.
The latest research - a study of 8,412 people across the UK who each underwent an MRI heart scan - is intended to put to bed (caffeine allowing) conflicting reports of the pros and cons of consumption.
The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, contradicted previous findings that it stiffens arteries, putting pressure on the heart and increasing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, leading to warnings to cut down.
Numerous studies have recognised the benefits of coffee in cutting oral and esophageal cancer, the risk of a stroke and cirrhosis of the liver.
The benefits are often linked to biologically active compounds including caffeine, flavonoids, lignans, and other polyphenols, which benefit the body. These and othetr coffee compounds regulate genes involved in DNA repair, have anti-inflammatory properties and are associated with lower risk of insulin resistance, which is linked to type-2 diabetes.
But as doctors warn, too much of anything is inadvisable. The British Heart Foundation found the heaviest coffee drinkers in the study were most likely to be men who smoked and drank alcohol regularly.
Excessive amounts of coffee also unsettle the stomach causing or contributing to stomach ulcers. It also stains the teeth over time, hampers absorption of minerals and vitamins like zinc and iron.
It also raises blood pressure, which is largely problematic for people with existing conditions.
So the heaviest drinkers of the black stuff - some in the study had up to 25 cups per day - may want to rein it in.
Rory Reynolds
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Should late investors consider cryptocurrencies?
Wealth managers recommend late investors to have a balanced portfolio that typically includes traditional assets such as cash, government and corporate bonds, equities, commodities and commercial property.
They do not usually recommend investing in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies due to the risk and volatility associated with them.
“It has produced eye-watering returns for some, whereas others have lost substantially as this has all depended purely on timing and when the buy-in was. If someone still has about 20 to 25 years until retirement, there isn’t any need to take such risks,” Rupert Connor of Abacus Financial Consultant says.
He adds that if a person is interested in owning a business or growing a property portfolio to increase their retirement income, this can be encouraged provided they keep in mind the overall risk profile of these assets.
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- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
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Who is Mohammed Al Halbousi?
The new speaker of Iraq’s parliament Mohammed Al Halbousi is the youngest person ever to serve in the role.
The 37-year-old was born in Al Garmah in Anbar and studied civil engineering in Baghdad before going into business. His development company Al Hadeed undertook reconstruction contracts rebuilding parts of Fallujah’s infrastructure.
He entered parliament in 2014 and served as a member of the human rights and finance committees until 2017. In August last year he was appointed governor of Anbar, a role in which he has struggled to secure funding to provide services in the war-damaged province and to secure the withdrawal of Shia militias. He relinquished the post when he was sworn in as a member of parliament on September 3.
He is a member of the Al Hal Sunni-based political party and the Sunni-led Coalition of Iraqi Forces, which is Iraq’s largest Sunni alliance with 37 seats from the May 12 election.
He maintains good relations with former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s State of Law Coaliton, Hadi Al Amiri’s Badr Organisation and Iranian officials.
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Name: Gul Raziq
From: Charsadda, Pakistan
Family: Wife and six children
Favourite holes at Al Ghazal: 15 and 8
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Childhood sport: cricket
