PTI

London, Dec 5: Al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden's son has claimed political asylum in Spain after being refused entry to live in the UK with his British wife.

27-year-old Omar Osama bin Laden is being held in Madrid's Barajas Airport after arriving in the Spanish capital on a Moroccan-bound flight from Egypt.

Omar, husband of a grandmother-of-five previously known as Jane Felix-Browne, is reported to be in the transit hall of the airport's newly-built terminal four.

He is expected to remain there while interpol confirms his identity and officials consider his asylum claim.

Spanish newspaper El Pais said authorities had decided to process his case "speedily".

Omar's surprise asylum claim comes seven months after he was told his British visa application was being turned down at the British Embassy in Cairo because of suggestions he could still be loyal to his terrorist father.

He reportedly flew into Madrid without his British wife, now known as Zaina Aisabah-bin Laden. They were planning to move to her £550,000 home in the village of Moulton, near Northwich in Cheshire, when he was refused a UK visa.

Self-declared pacifist Omar, one of Osama bin Laden's 19 sons, made his asylum claim after stepping off a plane from Cairo bound for Casablanca in Morocco during a scheduled stop in Madrid.