Yemen urges Pakistan to free bin Laden's widow

Sana'a, Mar 28 (ANI): Yemen has urged Pakistan to free one of Osama bin Laden's injured widows, saying Yemen-born Amal Al-Sadeh and her four children were not guilty of any crime.

Earlier this month, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik had said that bin Laden's three widows, including Sadeh, would be put on trial for entering and living in the country illegally.

However, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said: "The Pakistani authorities retracted from their initial position to surrender Amal to the Yemeni government."

"We continue to call on the Pakistani authorities to transfer her to her home country. We are also concerned about the well being of her young children. The children should not be punished for the mistakes of their father," The Dawn quoted him, as saying.

Al Qaeda leader and the 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was shot dead in May last year by US Special Forces who stormed his Abbottabad house in the Pakistan. adeh, two other wives from Saudi Arabia and an undisclosed number of children were among the 16 people detained by Pakistani authorities after the raid.

Relatives said Sadeh, who was shot in the leg during the raid, entered Pakistan legally.

"She came to Pakistan with her elder brother in 2000 using her passport," Hameed Al-Sadeh, Amal's 27-year-old cousin, said.

"They flew from Sanaa to Karachi. There was nothing illegal about it. The Pakistani authorities have even released a photocopy of her passport," he added. (ANI)