An American detention cell may not look so bad after five years holed up with Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden’s wife of 10 years, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, 29, may be extradited from Pakistan to US custody for questioning after leading a fugitive’s life with the world’s most reviled man.
“Extradition is a possibility,” a Pakistani official told Fox News.
But a transfer could be held up by worsening relations between the countries over this week’s commando raid on bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, less than a mile from Pakistan’s elite Kakul Military Academy.
US officials have asked for access to Abdulfattah, who was left behind by the raiding Navy SEALs, but have been rebuffed.
Abdulfattah, a Yemeni who was given as a bride to bin Laden by her al Qaeda-operative father in 2000, said she had been living in Abbottabad with bin Laden since 2005 or 2006.
During those five years, bin Laden, who was 54 when shot dead, never left his third-floor bedroom and living room, she told Pakistani authorities.
“He used two rooms on one of the floors,” Asad Munir, a former officer from Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, told ABC News. “He never went anywhere.”
Abdulfattah, who was bin Laden’s fourth wife, was shot in the calf during the raid, reportedly after lunging in front of the SEALs to save her husband.
She was among 17 people taken from the compound by Pakistani officials after the raid. Also taken was 12-year-old Safia bin Laden, bin Laden’s daughter by another wife. Safia may have witnessed his death.
All of the survivors are being questioned by Pakistani authorities.
Despite being a one-time millionaire and the leader of a global terror network, bin Laden likely led an isolated and spartan life in the compound.
He was “cash strapped,” according to Pakistani military officials.
The bin Ladens shared the compound with the family of his trusted courier, Abu Ahmed. The other family lived on the first floor and had its own kitchens and gas meters, according to Fox News.
Abdulfattah, whose image from an old ID card has been published widely, has also said she was with bin Laden for a period when he was hiding in caves on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.