Jailed Osama family to be deported

An Islamabad judge on Monday sentenced slain Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden’s three widows and his two daughters to a month and a half in prison for illegal stay in Pakistan. Judge also ordered the government to arrange repatriation of Osama’s widows and daughters to their respective countries Yemen and Saudi Arabia after the expiration of their jail term. Senior Civil Judge Sharukh Arjumand also imposed on them a fine of Rs100,000, which was immediately paid after the announcement of the ruling. However, the government can waive off the sentence and deport them instantly. Additionally, the family has the right to appeal to a high court against this decision. Amal Al Sadeh, a Yemeni, along with Osama’s two other wives from Saudi Arabia and an undisclosed number of children were among the sixteen people detained by Pakistani authorities in the fallout of the May 2 raid on Osama’s Abbottabad compound. Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal led judicial commission that is investigating the May 2 attack had interviewed the family members for clues about how Osama managed to stay in Pakistan undetected. Recently, the judge had ordered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in response to a request filed by Osama’s brother-in-law Zakaria Al Sadah, brother of Sadeh, to meet with his sister. Zakaria especially came from Yemen to seek her repatriation and fought the court case. His lawyer Mohammad Aamir represented him in the in-camera proceedings, held in a private residence for security reasons instead of a courtroom. Pakistani authorities formally arrested the women on March 3, so they will serve another two weeks in prison and then will be deported to their home countries along with the family’s younger children, said Aamir. Aamir said Yemen has consented to the return, but he is still in discussions with Saudi officials. Saudi Arabia stripped Osama of his citizenship in 1994 because of his verbal attacks against the Saudi royal family. The lawyer does not plan to appeal the court’s ruling. The case treads on a number of sensitive issues for Pakistan. The army faced rare domestic criticism following the US raid that killed Osama because they were powerless to stop it. Citizens also said Osama’s presence in the country for so long either pointed to the military’s incompetence or complicity. Islamabad was outraged by the US raid that killed Osama because it was not told about it beforehand. Pakistani officials have said they had no idea the Al Qaeda chief was in Abbottabad, something many in Washington found hard to believe because his compound was located close to Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point. However, US has not found any evidence indicating senior Pakistani officials knew of Osama’s whereabouts. But details uncovered recently from the interrogation of his 30-year-old Yemeni wife, Sadeh, raised fresh questions about how Osama was able to remain undetected for so long in Pakistan after the Sept.11, 2001 attacks, despite being the subject of a massive international manhunt. After leaving Afghanistan, Osama lived in five safe houses over the course of nine years while on the run in Pakistan and fathered four children — two of them born in government hospitals, according to Sadeh’s interrogation report, which was obtained by media. Sadeh’s account says she flew to Pakistan in 2000 and travelled to Afghanistan where she married bin Laden before the Sept.11 attacks. After that, the family “scattered” and she travelled to Karachi in Pakistan. She later met Osama in Peshawar and then moved to the Swat Valley, where they lived in two houses. They moved one more time before settling in Abbottabad in 2005. The compound in Abbottabad was a crowded place, with 28 residents — including the 54-year-old Osama, his three wives, eight of his children and five of his grandchildren, according to Brigadie Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani army officer who spent months researching the Osama raid and said he was given access to interrogation transcripts.