Pak seeks explanation from minister who said ‘leadership knew Osama bin Laden

The admission by Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, who was Pakistan’s defense minister at the time of the raid, contradicts the country’s official claim that it was unaware of bin Laden’s presence.

This included then-President Asif Ali Zardari, army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the joint chiefs of staff and people in the intelligence agency.

Mr Mukhtar has categorically denied the claim in a recent interview by Indian TV channel CNN-IBN, where he was shown to be agreeing to the idea that Pakistan’s top civilian and military leadership may have known about Osama’s presence in their country.

According to the 10,000-word expose published on the London Review of Books website, Bin Laden was a prisoner of the Pakistan military, who not only knew of his location, but were keeping him under house arrest and accepting funds from Saudi Arabia for his upkeep.

In the months and years since, though, Pakistani officials have remained largely tight-lipped about how bin Laden could have ended up finding such cozy sanctuary on Pakistani soil.

He also said that now it is up to the United States what to do with this revelation while asserting it proved that neither the words of the Pakistan Government or their military could be trusted. The way he (Obama) hid himself, we could not identify him’. And I am also clear that army and ISI could not have hidden it from me.

In the past, such claims were turned down by the Pakistan Foreign Office (FO), the army itself and Pakistani diplomats. Now the then Pakistan Defence Minister has blown the lid out of this denial as to why this narrative was not countered. “Because I am from them and they are from me” on October 27, 2011.

Answer of Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar: If you are trying to get hold of a gentleman who has been hiding away in the mountains for more than 15-18 years, then these kind of people are hard to be found and once you find them they normally don’t live after that. They attempt suicide. They would attempt to finish off their bodies by just killing themselves. I don’t know why he didn’t run away himself?