But Brigadier Qadir said he was convinced Pakistan’s security forces were
closing in on the world’s most wanted man and that he was eventually given
up by Khairiah Saber, his third wife who arrived to live in the Abbottabad
home early in 2011.
The villa in Abbottabad where Bin Laden lived (AFP)
He said the existing household of two wives and assorted children and
grandchildren was thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a third, older wife.
According to the testimony of his youngest wife Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah
al-Sadah, Khairiah said soon after her arrival: “I have one more duty
to perform for my husband.”
While other family members became suspicious it meant betrayal, bin Laden
appeared to accept his fate.
“If this is what she’s going to do then so be it. It’s a wife’s duty to
relieve her husband,” he reportedly said, while staring blankly into
space and apparently referring to the fact that he was in poor health.
“He tried to persuade the other wives to go and take the children with
them,” said Brig Qadir at his home in Rawalpindi on Thursday. “They
refused and said they would not leave without him.”
The research, which also includes interviews with Inter-Service Intelligence
agency spies and an al-Qaeda member, provides the most extensive account yet
of bin Laden’s life “hiding in plain sight”.
Some 27 people lived in the crowded, high-walled compound: Bin Laden his three
wives, five children and four grandchildren, along with the families of his
courier and the courier’s brother.
Only an odd-job man was the only person allowed to enter.
They arrived after al-Qaeda commanders had apparently ousted bin Laden from
his leadership role in 2003, amid fears that his powers were on the wane and
that he was suffering from senile dementia.
The house was demolished last month to prevent it becoming a shrine to
extremists.
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