Bin Laden widows, daughters face deportation from Pakistan
By the CNN Wire Staff
April 18, 2012 — Updated 0456 GMT (1256 HKT)
First look at bin Laden’s widows
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The detention of the widows and daughters of Osama bin Laden has ended
- A Pakistani judge ordered that they be deported once they had served the sentence
- The widows’ lawyer says he doesn’t know when they’ll leave the country
- Yemen has said it will allow the Yemeni widow to return home
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Osama bin Laden’s three widows and two daughters could be deported from Pakistan on Wednesday after their period of house detention expired overnight.
A Pakistani judge ordered earlier this month that the five women be deported back to their countries of citizenship after serving their sentence for living illegally in Pakistan.
The 45-day detention period ended Tuesday night, said Aamir Khalil, the widows’ lawyer. But he said he had no information on when they would be deported.
The widows — identified by U.S. and Pakistani officials as Amal Ahmed Abdul Fateh, Khairiah Sabar and Siham Sabar — have been in Pakistani custody since U.S. Navy SEALs raided bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad and killed the al Qaeda leader in May 2011.
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The daughters are aged 17 and 21, Khalil said.
All five defendants confessed to impersonation, illegal entry into Pakistan and staying illegally in Pakistan and chose not to appeal the judge’s sentence.
Yemen has officially announced that it will allow Fateh, bin Laden’s youngest widow, to return to her homeland. Her brother Zakaria Abdul Fateh said the Yemeni Embassy in Islamabad was processing her paperwork and that she planned to go back to Sanaa next month.
The position of the authorities in Saudi Arabia, where the other two widows are from, is unclear. Saudi Arabia had initially been resistant to their return.
Bin Laden spent years on the run in Pakistan after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, moving from one safe house to another and fathering four children with Fateh — at least one of whom was born in a government hospital, she told Pakistani investigators.
A deposition taken from Fateh gives the clearest picture yet of bin Laden’s life while international forces hunted him. He and his family moved from city to city with the help of Pakistanis who arranged “everything” for them, Fateh said, according to the deposition.
She told police she never applied for a visa during her stay in Pakistan.
CNN’s Shaan Khan and journalist Nasir Habib contributed to this report.
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