ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s government might wash its hands of Osama bin Laden’s family as early as April 17, after an Islamabad court’s decision Monday to impose the lightest possible sentence on his three widows and two teenage daughters for violating minor immigration laws.
Each of the five women was sentenced to 45 days in prison for illegally entering and residing in Pakistan since 2002, the date that Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, the youngest of the widows, gave in a statement to federal investigators. The widows and several of their children and grandchildren were left behind after U.S. forces killed bin Laden in a raid last May.
The women’s attorney, Atif Ali Khan, said the Yemeni government had agreed to allow al-Sada, a Yemeni national, to return home. He expressed confidence that talks with authorities in Saudi Arabia over accepting bin Laden’s Saudi wives, Khairiah Sabar and Siham Saber, would conclude successfully “in a few days.”
The court ordered the Interior Ministry to arrange for the repatriation of the five women and nine of bin Laden’s minor children by the end of the women’s sentence April 17.
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