Bin Ladens killed in UK plane crash

Family members of the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were killed in a private jet crash in southern England, a Saudi ambassador said, but did not further identify the dead. Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf Bin Abdel-Aziz, the Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom, 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 late Friday. Police say four people — a pilot and three passengers — died when an executive jet crashed into a parking lot and burst into flames while trying to land at an airport in southern England Friday afternoon. The plane had been flying from Malpensa Airport in Milan. The official Saudi Press Agency earlier identified the plane as Saudi-owned without mentioning the bin Ladens. It said a Saudi official would work with British authorities in investigating the crash, according to AP.

-SRS