"To say that this was all orchestrated by Osama bin Laden is a silly thing to do. He’s never claimed responsibility for it," Remy van de Wiel QC told the Australian jury.
Unless you accept the credibility of a dodgy videotape of a fat Bin Laden doppelganger "miraculously discovered" in a house in Jalalabad by U.S. troops and pushed as authentic by the ever-honest U.S. government, then van de Wiel has a point.
Indeed, Bin Laden’s first public statement following the 9/11 attacks was to deny any responsibility for carrying them out.
"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle,"
Bin Laden told the Pakistani-based Ummat newspaper.