Osama mother 'a strong woman... that comes across': Journalist, photographer to WION

ByHAthouba Meetei, Rishibha Kumari, and Karan Singh

Osama bin Laden's mother recently spoke to England's Guardian newspaper, posed for pictures, and gave an interview. Alia Ghanem hadn't spoken to the media since 2011 and David Levene, the photographer who carried out the assignment along with the journalist Martin Chulov, had wanted to get the photos just right.

He was given a 10-minute window to work in.

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When he finally came face to face with bin Laden's mother, he says he was shocked.

“The mother was not as I expected her to be. She didn't look how I thought she might look like. But she is a very strong woman and I guess that comes across in the portraits. She definitely seems like a matriarchal figure in the household,” Levene told WION.

“There was a lot of pressure because she is somebody who hasn't spoken to the media since 2011, we knew that it would be generating a lot of interest. We both, the interviewerMartin Chulov and I, knew that we wanted to produce good work," Levene said.

Levene described the house they met bin Laden's mother and extended family in as palatial, and with all the accompanying grandeur. “The house itself was very palatial. You know, it was a very formal kind of a setting."

“I think there was such a grave situation I wanted to ensure that the pictures convey some sense of tragedy,” Levene added.

"The Bin Laden family has been very important in the Saudi society for many decades now. They have a construction dynasty, they have built lot of the country and they have access to the establishment," Chulov told WION.

Last year however, three of the founding members of the family were locked up by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his corruption purge.

"The relationship between the family and the state had been tainted not only in the post-Bin Laden era but certainly the situation aggravated in the past 12 months," said Chulov.

Chulov says he believes the recent relations between the Saudi Kingdom and the Laden family had set the backdrop for the interview.

While the interview was underway, a Saudi minder was present in the room. There was however no attempt to direct any of the questioning.

Chulove said he tried to push for a video recording of the interview but the Saudis were not ready for that.

Did the Saudis knew where Osama was?

Martin added that the family went to meet Osama twice in Afghanistan in 1999.

The meeting took place in Kandahar. Osama was staying at an airbase used by the Soviets during their occupation of the country.

This meeting took place at a time when theUS had launched a global manhunt for Osama. Did that mean the Saudi government knew where Bin Laden was hiding?

"The family would have gone to visit him in 1999 with the permission of Saudi, they knew who they were visiting," answered Martin.

Martin also learned from the family that Osama has three surviving wives who live in Jeddah.

"There are three surviving wives of Bin Laden in Jeddah and they would have stories to tell. I would be fascinated to sit down with them. Particularly with the wives who were in the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan when the US Special Forces killed Bin Laden in May 2011," he said.

Levene told WION he also took pictures of Osama's half-brothers, and said they were quite candid. He said he got a whiff of what the remaining members of the bin Laden family felt.

“I did take some pictures of the brothers as well but only a few. I got a feeling that the brothers were very candid and honest about their feelings and about what happened with their half-brother and with the family. I think they felt a terrible sense of disappointment in what had happened and it seemed that the brother was led astray by external forces. I think they tried in vain to reason with him, at least in the early stages of him being radicalised all those years ago, but they definitely were very accepting about what had happened," Levene said.

"I didn't feel that, as far as the brothers were concerned, that there was a sense of denial. I think it is really a tragic thing for a family to have to deal with these awful series of events so close to home that they have no power over. All I can say is that I felt that the brothers were honestly talking about him. There was no denial of the facts,"Levene added.

Levene is optimistic about the entire episode and happy that "the pictures went well".

"The impact of the story is very much a collaboration between the journalist and other people who were involved to piece the whole package together. Certainly, the impact comes from seeing the pictures and by reading the interview at the same time," he said, adding, "These pictures are strong portraits of a strong matriarch. How they're going to last in time is another question altogether.”