Osama bin Laden sons protest their father’s “arbitrary killing”

The sons of Osama bin Laden, who was killed last week by U.S. special forces, have criticized President Barack Obama for authorizing the “arbitrary killing” of an unarmed men, in their first public statement on their father’s death.

In a statement given to The New York Times, the bin Laden family asks why the Al Qaeda leader had not been captured alive during the raid on his home compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden’s sons argue that the killing of their father had broken international law.

"We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems and crime's adjudication as justice must be seen to be done,” the statement says. A shorter, slightly different version of the statement was posted on a jihadist website.

The statement is attributed to bin Laden’s fourth son, Omar bin Laden, 30, who has repeatedly denounced violence and distanced himself from his father’s ideology.

The family says in the statement that they are not convinced bin Laden is dead, having not seen the body or any photographic or video evidence. They ask that bin Laden’s three wives and several children, captured during the raid and believed to be in Pakistani custody, be freed

If Osama bin Laden is indeed dead, the question is "why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world,” they say, citing the cases of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic .

The family questions “the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated.”

The statement also criticizes the sea burial of bin Laden, saying that it “has deprived the family of performing religious rights of a Muslim man.”