Yeslam bin Ladin

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Yeslam bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Ladin (Arabic: يسلم بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎; born October 19, 1950) better known as Yeslam bin Laden, also written Yeslam Binladin, as he prefers to spell it[1][2], is a Saudi businessman and the half-brother of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

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[edit] Family Background and early life

Yeslam bin Ladin is a Saudi national of Persian and Yemeni heritage (through his mother and father, respectively). He has 54 half brothers and half sisters, including 2 younger brothers (Ibrahim and Khalil) and a younger sister (Fawzia) by the same mother as him, Rabab Haguigui. They live in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His father Mohammed bin Laden died when he was 17 years old.

He has lived in Switzerland since the mid-1980s, and became a Swiss citizen in April 2001. He speaks Arabic, English, French and Persian. He is a Sunni Muslim and is said to live a mainly Western lifestyle. An ex-girlfriend of his from 1993 to 2001, Catherine Berclaz (41 years old) she is with short colored blond hair with blue eyes, is a Swiss interior decorator who wrote a book on their relationship, Yeslam, My Love: In the Heart of the Bin Laden Family. His last girlfriend, from 2002, is Hélène Zufferey an ex-model (1974, 35 years old), from a Swiss father and an Italian mother (Bergamo in Lombardy and Vercelli in Piedmont, Northern Italy). She is with long colored blond hair and blacks eyes. From 2006 she was a trainee lawyer (attorney-at-law) in Geneva.

He divorced his wife Carmen bin Ladin in January 2006, after 15 years of separation. Carmen bin Laden wrote an autobiography, Inside the Kingdom (ISBN 0-446-69488-6), which was a New York Times Bestseller, recounting her life in the Bin Laden family and how she managed to keep her daughters in her custody. He has three daughters, Wafah Dufour (33 years old), Najia (31 years old), and Noor (21 years old), and has reportedly not spoken to them for more than 15 years because of their western customs. Wafah (Dufour) Binladin earned a law degree from Geneva University and a masters degree from Colombia Law School in New-York. In 2006 she appeared undressed in a mens magazine GQ. She has lived New-York and now in London. She is with long curly colored blond hair with black eyes.

After attending high school in Beirut, Lebanon, Bin Ladin studied economics at Göteborg University, Sweden, and business administration at UCLA. On February 25, 2005, he was granted permission by the Swiss government to use the name bin Ladin to brand products for his business including a perfume for men and women dubbed "Yeslam" and a second one for women "Passion", handbags, accessories and watches under the name "Yeslam". Shops opened in Geneva (1), in Jeddah (2), in Riyadh (1), in Mecca, in Damman (1) (Saudi Arabia) and in Kuala Lumpur (Malaisia). He engaged Creators and chose the creations but he is not Designer. He has a pilot's license like his father and owns a Learjet.

[edit] Current activities

Since 1980 Yeslam has been chairman of the Geneva, Switzerland-based Saudi Investment Company (SICO), which represents his family's Saudi Binladin Group's international financial interests.[3]. His fortune was estimated to have peaked at 300 million Swiss Francs, but is now thought to be below 100 million.[4].

He has been a partner of Pakistani businessman Akberali Moawalla.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ RFI - Société - Les senteurs d’un Ben Laden
  2. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/07/20/ftbin20.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/07/20/ixartright.html
  3. ^ frontline: hunting bin laden: who is bin laden?: about the bin laden family | PBS
  4. ^ Bilan Swiss Newspaper
  5. ^ Meet the Bin Ladins, Part II (June 6, 2005).

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links