Bin Laden sons protest to US over 'arbitrary killing'

A statement given to the New York Times newspaper said the family wanted to know why the al-Qaeda leader had not been captured alive.

Relatives who survived the 2 May raid in Pakistan should be freed, it said.

Another statement appeared on a jihadist website saying the burial of Bin Laden at sea "demeans and humiliates his family".

Osama Bin Laden was shot dead by US special forces during a raid on his home in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.

The statement printed by the New York Times was attributed to Bin Laden's fourth son, Omar Bin Laden, who has repeatedly distanced himself from his father's ideology.

The statement said that in absence of a body or photographic evidence, the family were not convinced he was dead.

But if he was dead, it said, they were questioning "why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world;" Kazinform cites BBC News.

See www.bbc.co.uk for full version