Why not? He knows a dhimmi when he sees one. At least they had enough spine to ban him, although they tolerated Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza long enough. From the TimesOnline, with thanks to Scaramouche:
HE CLAIMS to hate everything the West stands for. But yesterday it emerged that Osama bin Laden sought asylum in Britain even as he was planning the September 11 attacks on the US.The al-Qaeda leader wanted to abandon his base in Sudan at the end of 1995 and asked some of his followers in London to sound out whether he would be able to move to Britain.
Michael Howard, who was then Home Secretary, recalls how his aides told him of the asylum request from the Saudi-born militant of whom the world knew little of ten years ago. A number of his brothers and other relatives, all members of the wealthy bin Laden construction empire, owned properties in London by the mid-1990s....
The astonishing approach to the British authorities happened only months after bin Laden had secretly organised a terror summit in Manila in January 1995 to begin planning how hijackers would turn passenger planes into flying bombs. He called it the “Bojinka plot”, which is Arabic slang for an explosion.By this time bin Laden had also transferred some of his considerable personal fortune to London for his followers to establish terror cells here and across Europe.
His name rarely appeared in the British media even though by late 1995 his network had already bombed a number of US army bases abroad and plotted assassination attempts against Pope John Paul II and President Clinton.
Mr Howard said yesterday: “In truth, I knew little about him, but we picked up information that bin Laden was very interested in coming to Britain. It was apparently a serious request. He already had people operating here, and who knows how history could have been rewritten if he had turned up here?”
Bin Laden never got a chance to make a formal application as Home Office officials investigated him and Mr Howard issued an immediate banning order under Britain’s immigration laws.
Thank gawd we'd Conservative govt back then. Who knows what would have happened if Labour had been in power then...
BTW In Indian state of Bihar, the so-called "Secular" alliance of Congress and RJD find it amusing to use OBL to woo Muslims
http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&slug=Osama+lookalike+joins+Lalu's+camp&id=79307
it should be : OBL lookalike to woo Muslim voters.
The trouble is, Vikrant, the Tories themselves let in quite a few unsavoury characters, like Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed and Sheikh Abu Hamza to name but a few.
The Tories let them in and the human rights lawyers like Ms Booth aka Blair are sure not gonna let them out! But, hey, it's a lot more comfortable organising Jihad on benefit in London while being supplied with plenty of soothing words from social workers and lawyers than in some cave in Afghanistan. Us Brits have long given up having any say in who gets to reside here or have a passport dished out to them.
Sheikh Omar Bakris already done a runner and hopefully won't be back, and lets see if Abu Hamza gets extradited.
Londongirl
Bang on lass.