Pakistan deported the family of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden late on Thursday, putting an end to the embarrassing situation the country had been facing since U.S. Special Forces located the terror mastermind in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad a year ago and killed him in a midnight operation.
A minibus took bin Laden's three wives and eleven children to the Islamabad airport from their heavily-guarded house in the Pakistani capital and put them in a chartered aircraft brought from Saudi Arabia, Pak media reported quoting officials.
They were under Pakistani custody since the killing of bin Laden by U.S. Navy Seals after a helicopter-borne raid on his fortified villa on May 2, 2011.
Bin Laden's wives and two grown-up daughters were charged with staying in Pakistan illegally, and they completed last week 45 days' imprisonment at the Islamabad house which was designated as a "sub-jail" after a court punished them for illegal stay in the country. The court had also ordered their deportation after serving the sentence.
The Pak Interior Ministry issued a statement saying it had "passed orders for the deportation of 14 members of OBL family in pursuance of the court orders. The family was kept safe and sound in a guest house... They have been deported to the country of their choice, Saudi Arabia, today," it added.
The two oldest wives are Saudi citizens, while the youngest Amal Abdulfattah is Yemeni, and she had suffered injuries when U.S. commandos raided the bin Laden hideout. Her brother had approached the Islamabad High Court seeking better medical treatment for her injuries.
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