Company defends use of 'quite hairy' 9/11 mastermind in hair removal advert
A COSMETICS company have defended their use of a 9/11 mastermind to advertise hair removal products, claiming they used his image for "his hair, not terrorism".
An advert for Epila hair removal products featured a photo of Kuwaiti-born Khalid Sheikh Mohammed shortly after his capture in 2003.
It was accompanied by the caption: "Waiting won't get rid of that hair".
The Turkish company insisted that they used the terror suspect's picture for "his hair, not terrorism".
Mehmet Can Yildiz, a spokesperson for the firm, told Hurriyet Daily News: "We didn't know that he was a terrorist.
"This image is in popular use in Turkish memes on the internet.
"The guy is quite hairy, so we thought his body was a good fit for our ad.
The guy is quite hairy, so we thought his body was a good fit for our ad
"Several popular caps [humourously captioned images] were produced with his photo. Most were related to insomnia.
"We didn't want to imply anything political.
"We didn't know that it could become an international story."
The former al-Qaeda member is currently being held at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
The 9/11 Commission Report described him as "the principal architect" of the 2001 terror attacks on New York, which left 2,996 dead.