Dubai - A dissident Saudi cleric yesterday described a video tape of Osama bin Laden and released by the United States as a fake and said Washington had no case against the Saudi-born fugitive.
Sheikh Hamoud bin Ogla al-Shuaibi, who has angered Saudi officials with edicts denouncing Muslims who back US military strikes on Afghanistan, said his followers had analysed the tape released by the Pentagon on Thursday and found it to be fake.
"This is a dubbed tape and is not real at all," he said by telephone from the northern Saudi town of Buraida. "If they had evidence against bin Laden, they wouldn't have come up with this miserable proof which, if anything, shows how silly they are," he added. Washington says the tape was the "smoking gun" that nails bin Laden as mastermind of the September 11th attacks.