Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia has said it has no evidence Osama bin Laden is dead, shedding further doubt on a secret document leaked in France that said Saudi secret services believed he died last month.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said that as far as he knew the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader was still alive.

"To my knowledge Osama bin Laden is not dead," he said on LCI Television. But he added he had not seen a French secret service report, printed by a newspaper, which said Saudi Arabia was convinced bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

France, the United States and Britain all said earlier they were unable to confirm the report in French regional daily L'Est Republicain, which quoted the DGSE foreign intelligence service.

Time magazine separately posted an article on its website quoting an unidentified Saudi source as saying bin Laden was stricken with a water-borne disease and may already be dead.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington issued a statement saying: "The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no evidence to support recent media reports that Osama bin Laden is dead.

Information that has been reported otherwise is purely speculative and cannot be independently verified."

French President Jacques Chirac told reporters bin Laden's death "has not been confirmed in any way whatsoever and so I have no comment to make" and that he was surprised a confidential note had been published. France has launched an investigation into the leak.

"No comment, no knowledge," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when asked about the French article by reporters in New York.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, asked in a BBC interview if he could shed light on the report, said: "No, I can't. I haven't heard anything that indicates that might be the case."

A US intelligence source said Washington, which wants to capture bin Laden, had no evidence the report was any more credible than earlier rumours of his death.

"We've heard these things before and have no reason to think this is any different," said the US intelligence official, who asked not to be named.

L'Est Republicain, published in Nancy, printed what it said was a copy of the DGSE report, dated September 21, and said it was passed to Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin the same day.

"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," it read.