The Yemeni family of the youngest widow of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden demanded on Tuesday that she be repatriated along with her five children from Pakistan where she is being detained. The brother of Amal Abdulfattah told AFP he had received assurances from the Yemeni ambassador in Islamabad that she is "in good health" despite sustaining a gunshot wound to the leg during the US commando raid that killed bin Laden.
"We want her to be repatriated with her five children - three daughters and two sons," said Zakariya Abdulfattah. "The eldest among them is (a daughter) Safiya who is less than 10 years old," he added. A Yemeni human rights organisation said on Tuesday that it was working to repatriate Amal Abdulfattah, 29.
The National Organisation for Defending Rights and Freedoms (HOOD) is acting "on behalf of the family of Amal," part of the Al-Sada tribe of Ibb province, south-west of the capital Sanaa, lawyer Abdulrahman Baraman said. US intelligence services have reportedly interrogated three of bin Laden's widows who were picked up in the US commando raid north of Islamabad in which the al Qaeda leader was killed. "She is innocent. Her only crime was having married Osama bin Laden," he added.