The three widows, eight children and a nephew of Osama bin Laden, arrested in Pakistan after Al-Qaeda leader’s death almost ago left Friday morning the country for Saudi Arabia, according to Pakistani Interior Ministry. The plane carrying the Bin Laden family took off at the airport in Islamabad just before 02:00 AM, local time, AFP writes quoting a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior.
After ten months of detention without any official reason, the three wives, two Saudi and one Yemeni, were sentenced to 45 days in jail for illegally entering Pakistan – and were deported together with their children after their prison term was completed. Previously, an official from the Pakistani Ministry of Interior declared anonymously: “The family is at Islamabad airport, about to leave the country for Saudi Arabia. A special plane arrived to take them off around 1:30 AM.
Interior Minister indicated in a statement that it “ordered the expulsion of 14 members of the family of Osama bin Laden, applying the judicial decision” and that they were “expelled to the country of their choice, namely Saudi Arabia.” The former Al-Qaeda leader was killed on May 2, 2011 by a U.S. Special Forces commando which stormed the house where he lived with his family in Abbottabad, northern Pakistan. The commando have taken his body with them, leaving wives and children on site where they were later arrested by Pakistani authorities.
Prolonged and unjustified detention of the family has fueled questions about the attitude of Pakistani authorities suspected that they wanted to hide information about bin Laden’s last years and especially about possible accomplices who helped him live for many years in Pakistan (between 2002 and 2011 at least, according to police investigation) without being discovered. Pakistani Officials recently assured however that Islamabad wants to expel them as soon as possible to end an embarrassing chapter of Bin Laden living in an Abbottabad large compound that has now been flattened.
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