Bin Laden’s wife ‘refusing to undergo surgery in Pak prison’

“We are worried about her physical and mental health. My sister is being held illegally. Under international law,she should be set free. She’s not locked in a cell but is watched 24 hours a day and is living in small room with her children.

“Yet she hasn’t been tried or convicted and we have no idea where she is being held. The wounds to her leg are not minor,but she is refusing surgery until she is allowed to see her family,” Amal’s brother Zakariya said.

Zakariya claimed his sister had done nothing wrong. “My sister was a wife,she did not commit any crime. She did not want to be involved in anything her husband was doing. She was busy ensuring her children were raised well,like any mother,” he said.

It was widely known that Amal gave birth to a daughter days after September 11 attacks on New York. She was named Safia by Bin Laden,after a relative of the prophet Mohammed who “had killed a Jew”.

But Zakariya revealed she has had four more children — two sons and two daughters. “We want the children to be brought up by their mother in Yemen. And we are not at all worried about raising bin Laden’s children.

“Amal never complained about Osama as a husband. She did not know most of what he was doing outside their married life,” he said.