Obama Refuses to Release Osama Death Photos

Last night David Cameron said: ‘There are some conspiracy theorists who will never be satisfied. There are some people who still believe that Elvis will be found riding Shergar.’

Some Muslims yesterday disputed the U.S. claim that Bin Laden’s burial at sea was in accordance with Islamic tradition.

A U.S. government spokesman said it had been decided it would be difficult to find a country prepared to accept the body and then bury it within 24 hours of death as dictated by Islamic custom. But he said it had been instead respectfully interred in the waves of the Indian Ocean off Pakistan from the U.S. aircraft carrier the Carl Vinson.

Muslim scholars said that while sea burials have long been an occasional accepted necessity, there was no such need in this case.

The head of Egypt’s prestigious seat of Sunni Muslim learning, al-Azhar, said the sea burial ‘contradicts all the religious values and human norms’. The operation - code named 'Geronimo' - was watched by the President in real time from the helmet mounted camera of an elite Navy SEAL commando.

Although President Obama saw the terror chief killed by a single bullet to the head, it was only when he received the signal 'Geronino E-KIA' - which stands for 'Enemy Killed In Action'- that he knew Bin Laden was dead. It is understood Bin Laden, code named 'Jackpot', was unarmed but did 'resist'.

It had previously been claimed the terror chief also used a woman thought to be his wife as a human shield - but this has now been retracted by officials. According to reports Bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter was present when U.S. forces shot and killed her father.

Obama had earlier ruled out killing the terrorist with two air dropped bombs and an as yet undisclosed third option, in favour of the more risky raid which would provide DNA and bodily evidence Osama was dead. The SEAL team also used a facial recognition system to positively identify the body of Bin Laden.

The commander of the operation took a digital image of Bin Laden's remains and fed them back to the CIA, where a facial recognition system confirmed the identity. Bin Laden's widow, 27-year-old Amal Al-Sadah, who was shot in the leg, also helped to identify the body.

The U.S. military said that preparations for burying the terror leader in the sea lasted an hour. His body was washed aboard the USS Carl Vinson before being covered in a white sheet and religious remarks translated into Arabic by a native speaker were read over the corpse.