THE SONS OF Osama bin Laden have protested against the “arbitrary killing” of their father, in a statement to the New York Times.

Omar Ossama Binladin, writing on behalf of himself and his brothers, said they are “not convinced on the available evidence in the absence of dead body, photographs, and video evidence that our natural father is dead” and that wish to see “conclusive evidence”.

The White House has said it will never release images taken of bin Laden’s body.

They asked why they had not been contacted to receive his body and questioned the propriety of US actions in not arresting bin Laden if he was, as reports have suggested, unarmed. They said “arbitrary killing” was not justice:

If he has been summarily executed then, we question the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated but USA has set a very different example whereby right to have a fair trial, and presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law has been sacrificed on which western society is built and is standing when a trial of OBL was possible for any wrongdoing as that of Iraqi President Sadam Hussein and Serbian President Slobodan Miloševic.

Omar Ossama Binladen also pointed out that he had “always disagreed with our father” over the use of violence and had called on him to “change his ways”.

Restoring US-Pakistan relations

The US Senator John Kerry is to travel to Pakistan this week to get the dialogue between the two nations back “on the right track” after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the BBC reports. Pakistan is one of the main allies to the US in its anti-terrorism push, but relations between the two appear to have been seriously damaged by the manner of bin Laden’s death.

After the US announced the killing, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani said his country had not been informed in advance of the raid and the that US had carried it out without its help. However, he insisted that Pakistan had played a role in tracking bin Laden.

Pakistan’s government has vehemently denied knowing bin Laden was living in the garrison town of Abbottabad and refuted suggestions they aided him in any way to hide from the US.

Speaking on US television at the weekend, President Barack Obama said that the US didn’t know what kind of support network bin Laden had, or if anyone inside Pakistan’s government was involved. He called on Pakistani authorities to investigate any support bin Laden had while living in the Abbottabad compound.

Read the bin Laden family’s statement in full in the NYT >

Obama: bin Laden raid “longest 40 minutes of my life” >