What if bin laden had stood trial

Others in the Compound Three women and nine children are taken away from the compound by the Pakistani military, who arrive after the raid. Items Seized The Seal team removes about thumb drives, DVDs, computer disks, 10 computer hard drives, five computers and piles of paper documents from the house.

Detainees at Guantanamo Bay provided the crucial breakthrough in hunting down Osama Bin Laden, American officials said last night. Senior officials in the Obama administration said intelligence gained from interrogations at the U.

Hundreds of suspects rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan were subjected to techniques such as water-boarding, sleep deprivation, white noise and stress positions at the U. Naval base in Cuba. Human rights groups claim the techniques amounted to torture, and that many of the detainees had no link to terrorism. But U. One courier in particular had our constant attention. Documents released by the Wikileaks organisation appear to confirm that detainees provided information about a courier operating out of the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, where Bin Laden was eventually tracked down — although it is unclear whether the individual involved is the one who eventually led U.

Mike Blakemore, of the human rights group Amnesty International, last night said torture could not be justified in any circumstances. Whatever is claimed, it is also hopelessly unreliable as a source of information — someone being tortured will say anything to try to make their suffering stop. Rather, it was a voluntary tip from Pakistani intelligence.

It began with a walk-in. He offered to tell the CIA where to find bin Laden in return for the reward that Washington had offered in The US initially kept what it knew from the Pakistanis. The CIA rented a house in Abbottabad to use as a forward observation base and staffed it with Pakistani employees and foreign nationals.

Later on, the base would serve as a contact point with the ISI; it attracted little attention because Abbottabad is a holiday spot full of houses rented on short leases. A psychological profile of the informant was prepared. The informant and his family were smuggled out of Pakistan and relocated in the Washington area. He is now a consultant for the CIA.

In October, Obama was briefed on the intelligence. His response was cautious, the retired official said. It was just too crazy. They believed they would get this if they got DNA evidence, and if they could assure him that a night assault of the compound would carry no risk.

The bin Laden compound was less than two miles from the Pakistan Military Academy, and a Pakistani army combat battalion headquarters was another mile or so away. Obama was anxious for reassurance that the US was going to get the right man.

The planners turned for help to Kayani and Pasha, who asked Aziz to obtain the specimens. Bargaining continued over the way the mission would be executed. You have to come in lean and mean. What are the defences inside the compound and its exact dimensions? How many steps in the stairway? Where are the doors to his rooms, and are they reinforced with steel? How thick?

By then, the military had constructed a mock-up of the compound in Abbottabad at a secret former nuclear test site in Nevada, and an elite Seal team had begun rehearsing for the attack. The American cell at Tarbela Ghazi was charged with co-ordinating communications between the ISI, the senior US officers at their command post in Afghanistan, and the two Black Hawk helicopters; the goal was to ensure that no stray Pakistani fighter plane on border patrol spotted the intruders and took action to stop them.

It was clear to all by this point, the retired official said, that bin Laden would not survive […]. At the Abbottabad compound ISI guards were posted around the clock to keep watch over bin Laden and his wives and children. They were under orders to leave as soon as they heard the rotors of the US helicopters. The town was dark: the electricity supply had been cut off on the orders of the ISI hours before the raid began. One of the Black Hawks crashed inside the walls of the compound, injuring many on board.

The cockpit of the crashed Black Hawk, with its communication and navigational gear, had to be destroyed by concussion grenades, and this would create a series of explosions and a fire visible for miles. Two Chinook helicopters had flown from Afghanistan to a nearby Pakistani intelligence base to provide logistical support, and one of them was immediately dispatched to Abbottabad.

But because the helicopter had been equipped with a bladder loaded with extra fuel for the two Black Hawks, it first had to be reconfigured as a troop carrier.

The crash of the Black Hawk and the need to fly in a replacement were nerve-wracking and time-consuming setbacks, but the Seals continued with their mission. There was no firefight as they moved into the compound; the ISI guards had gone.

Had there been any opposition, the team would have been highly vulnerable. The Seal squad used explosives to blow the doors open, without injuring anyone.

Osama was cowering and retreated into the bedroom. Two shooters followed him and opened up. Very simple, very straightforward, very professional hit. The house was shabby and bin Laden was living in a cell with bars on the window and barbed wire on the roof. The rules of engagement were that if bin Laden put up any opposition they were authorised to take lethal action. But if they suspected he might have some means of opposition, like an explosive vest under his robe, they could also kill him.

The rules gave them absolute authority to kill the guy. The Black Hawk is still burning. There are no city lights. No electricity. No police. No fire trucks. They have no prisoners. The guys just stuffed some books and papers they found in his room in their backpacks. And they were not intelligence experts gathering information inside that house.

Five days after the raid the Pentagon press corps was provided with a series of videotapes that were said by US officials to have been taken from a large collection the Seals had removed from the compound, along with as many as 15 computers. Snippets from one of the videos showed a solitary bin Laden looking wan and wrapped in a blanket, watching what appeared to be a video of himself on television. He was throwing operational ideas out there and he was also specifically directing other al-Qaida members.

And then we were told that the community is gathering everything together and needs to translate it. But nothing has come of it. Every single thing they have created turns out not to be true. They have been difficult connections to make in the trial of Charles Taylor, currently awaiting a judgment. And in both Serbia and Liberia, there were many whose hero worship for their former leaders was reinforced rather than weakened by seeing them in the dock. As the clinching argument for trials, the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has cited the Nuremberg Tribunal , "which has confounded Holocaust-deniers ever since".

Sadly, it hasn't and, in the age of the Internet, malicious fabrication about the Nazis still pulls in gullible converts. How much more seductive is the viral propaganda of Islamist extremism and what contribution would Bin Laden, giving evidence in his own defence and imprisoned for the rest of his natural life - like Rudolf Hess - have made to the myth? Churchill never regretted being talked out of his original preference for the surviving Nazi leaders to be summarily shot.

But if Barack Obama gave explicit authorisation for the killing of Bin Laden, he can cite persuasive reasons for doing so. Time magazine story on Panetta's doubts. Location, location. Would a trial have boosted Bin Laden's hero status? Inspiration or mastermind? Hero worship. The U. And if this author is mysteriously killed in the coming weeks, you can be sure one of these is true. Steve R. Pieczenik, looked like a textbook case of the disorder. His tall frame, long limbs and long face all displayed classic symptoms.

The disease affects one in about 5, people and can cause sudden death and there is no definitive DNA test for it. Like all great conspiracy theories, this one is fact mixed with a healthy dose of fiction -- but the facts make it just believable enough to catch on.

The conspiracy theory alleges that bin Laden became a CIA asset at this time. Funded through the heroin trade, tacitly permitted by Pakistan, the CIA created a means to fight Islamic fundamentalism in one place.

The raid that killed bin Laden the terrorist was allegedly a means to let bin Laden the CIA asset retire. This is a theory backed by the Iranian regime.

This one comes from legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. The SEALs then riddled him with bullets, tore his body apart, and dispersed them throughout the Hindu Kush, just because. In the London Telegraph , Abbottabad resident Bashir Qureshi dismissed the idea that bin Laden and his family lived in the area. We've never seen any Arabs around here, he was not here.