Sanaa, May 16: The brother of Osama Bin Laden’s widow Amal, who was shot in the leg during the US Navy Seals raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, has called for her release.
Zakaria Al Sada, 24, who has been taking part pro-democracy demonstrations in Yemen, told Britain’s Telegraph that “Bin Laden is dead, Al Qaeda is over, there is no reason to keep [Amal].”
The 29-year-old Yemeni widow from Ibb, is in detention in Pakistan along with her teenage daughter and other family members and residents of the compound in Abbottabad where Bin Laden was killed on May 2.
Her family has asked authorities in Pakistani and Yemen allow her to return home.
Pakistani authorities last week said they planned to repatriate all the residents of the Abbottabad compound to their home countries after they were done interrogating them.
Amal Al Sada has been the focus of media interest, especially as she was reported to have been shot while defending her husband.
She was married to Bin Laden at a young age in a traditional marriage that was arranged by a close associate of the Al Qaeda leader, Rasdah Saeed. Also known as Abu Al Fida, he is a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
“In 1999, Bin Laden was respected as a freedom fighter and fought against the Soviet occupation,” said Amal’s brother, Mr. Sada. “This was before September 11. That is why my father consented to the match. He was not a wanted man then. No one considered him to be a terrorist.”
Amal’s loyalties to Bin Laden are now well known. She told her father who visited her that she “would willingly face martyrdom” for her husband, as was widely reported in the news following his death.
Describing his sister, Mr. Sada painted a picture of a pious woman “who had been the apple of his father’s eye” he was quoted as saying in The Sunday Telegraph.
“She has always been a very kind and polite girl,” he said. “She was absolutely my parents’ favorite daughter, and I remember how she used to gather us and give us lectures on good Islamic manners and taught us how to be kind to others. Once when we were children, we went to throw stones at our neighbors from the roof. Amal found out about it and told us off, reminding us how The Prophet ordered us to treat others with kindness.”
He narrated how his family discovered Amal being shot in the US raid from news reports. They now fear that because authorities see her as a “high value” asset, she will be kept in detention.
“My mother cries constantly,” said Mr. Sada, who has appealed to Pakistan’s ambassador to Yemen for his sister’s safe return.
“At first, it was reported that she had actually been killed, and that put our family through undue suffering. However, we know that if the US wanted to get rid of Amal, they would have simply killed her along with Bin Laden. That fact eases our worries slightly,” he said.
“But Amal had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or terrorism of any kind. No law can incriminate her, and international law dictates that she should be returned to her family,” he added.
Mr. Sada said that he did not know Amal’s whereabouts in Pakistan though it has been reported she is being held in a military hospital.
He also said that while they know she had one daughter with Bin Laden, they were not certain if she had borne him other children.
“This is a humanitarian situation; these children have seen their father killed in front of their eyes and they should be treated by a psychiatrist,” he said. “Amal was also shot for no reason, she wasn’t even armed.”
Mr. Sada is a third year student in mass communications at Sana’a University. Unlike his former brother-in-law, Mr. Sada has been participating in protests since January 15 in Yemen—“back when there were only 20 of us showing up to rallies,” he told the paper.
“I am protesting against corruption, against the absence of justice and equality in Yemen. When people live in equality, there will be no more Al Qaeda,” he said.