Osama bin Laden spent his last days sidelined by al Qaeda and slipping into dementia, possibly betrayed to the Americans by a jealous wife and his own deputy, a Pakistani investigator says. Brigadier Shaukat Qadir (Retd) says he spent eight months investigating the al Qaeda chief's life in Pakistan, using his army connections to visit the villa where he lived and died, and securing access to confidential documents.
He says he spoke to Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents who interrogated bin Laden's wives and saw their interview transcripts, all thanks to a close relationship with army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani. He has no evidence, but offers a tantalising image of a frail man resigned to death and betrayed through one of his wives in an al Qaeda plot - which if true would shed new light on the demise of the world's most-wanted man. "al Qaeda decided to retire him in 2003. He was going mentally senile. From 2001, he had some kind of degenerative disease and was coming up with fantasies," Qadir said.
He says his theories are his alone, but admits he may have been manipulated by the army and acknowledges that his account suits the ISI, which is still fending off suspicions of incompetence or complicity in sheltering bin Laden. Bulldozers moved in to demolish the compound under the cover of darkness on February 25, which observers took as a sign that authorities want to consign the physical evidence of their embarrassment to oblivion.