Bin Laden widows being deported to Saudi Arabia, lawyer Amir Khalil says
Pakistani women police commandos and male colleagues change shifts today outside the house where family members of slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden are believed to be held in Islamabad.
Lawyers for widows and children of Osama bin Laden are being deported from Pakistan, possibly at this very minute, according to ABC News.
Two Saudi women and one Yemeni, the former al-Qaeda leader’s widows who had been held since his killing by the US Navy in May, were convicted of immigration violations. A lawyer cited by ABC said the deportation was to occur at midnight local time, or 3 pm EDT.
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According to The Guardian, the family were sentenced on April 2 to 45 days in prison but credited for time served, allowing them to be freed today.
The Guardian said some had speculated locally that Pakistani officials feared that family members could embarrass officials in Islamabad by revealing the degree of tolerance and even support that bin Laden had received while a fugitive from the US.
ABC said a police report indicated that the youngest bin Laden widow, Amal Ahmad Abdul Fatah, told interrogators that bin Laden had spent most of the time between the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001 and his killing in May, not in Afghan mountain redoubts but in major Pakistani cities.
At least one of the four children bin Laden fathered during this time was born in a Pakistani government hospital.
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According to MSNBC, the attorney, Amir Khalil, said family were “very happy” to be released.