Osama Bin Laden's family deported from Pakistan

Pakistani policemen escort a minivan carrying family members of slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, in Islamabad, as they leave for the airport before their departure to Saudia Arabia, on April 26, 2012. -- PHOTO: AFP

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AFP) - Osama bin Laden's family were deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia early on Friday, officials said, nearly a year after the Al-Qaeda leader was killed in a United States (US) raid.

The 9/11 mastermind's three widows and their children were detained by Pakistani authorities after the Saudi was killed in a US Navy Seal operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, last May.

Washington and Islamabad's relationship was badly damaged by the revelation that the world's most wanted man was living a stone's throw from Pakistan's elite military academy.

The family's departure will remove a physical reminder of that rupture and of the humiliation Pakistan felt at the raid, which the United States kept secret from its ally.