Now bin Laden - the fashion label

The brother of fugitive terror chief Osama bin Laden is to launch a fashion label, it was reported today, a move that has been compared with like trying to sell clothes branded Hitler.

Yesama Binladin, who spells his name differently from his better-known relative, trade-marked the name as a fashion label in Switzerland and the European Union before the September 11 attacks, but is pressing ahead with the plan.

He is now looking for an Italian partner to design and manufacture the clothing line, which the Wall Street Journal reported would be designed to compete with fashion retailers like Benetton.

Mr Binladin's Swiss lawyer, Juerg Brand, told the newspaper: "The name is one of the most famous in the world.

"We think that people are able to distinguish between Osama and the rest of the family."

The brand is first to be launched in the Middle East, where the name will be put on clothes in Arabic script, then in Europe, where it will be in the western alphabet.

There are no immediate plans for the line to be sold in the United States, but lawyers are working on a trademark request for the name there.

"We can't make an immediate jump across the ocean," said Mr Brand. "We can't over-extend our possibilities."

The Binladin name, which has a variety of spellings, is one of the most famous in Saudi Arabia, where Osama bin Laden's father founded the country's largest construction dynasty.

Mr Binladin based his idea for a clothing chain on the success of American construction equipment firm Caterpillar, which cashed in when it branded boots, t-shirts jeans and jackets with its logo.

But fashion experts dismissed the plan and said it was like trying to sell clothes branded "Hitler".

Rita Clifton, chairman of London-based consultancy Interbrand, told the newspaper: "Hitler was also a very well known brand name, but I think we would all feel that a pair of Hitler shoes after all these years would be in very bad taste."

Mario Boselli, head of Italy's fashion trade organisation, said: "It's not that the sins of the fathers should fall on the shoulders of the children, or that one brother should be blamed for all the actions of the other, but I can't see how someone could ever try to exploit this kind of notoriety."

Osama bin Laden has at least 49 brothers and sisters, as his father had multiple wives, who are spread across the world.

Most live in Saudi Arabia, where they run the Binladin Construction Group, while others live in Switzerland and the United States.

Radical sheikh chic