Concerns Raised over Shooting of Unarmed bin Laden, Burial

BERLIN, KOMPAS.com - The killing of Osama bin Laden when he was unarmed has raised concerns the United States may have gone too far in acting as policeman, judge and executioner of the world’s most wanted man. But for several Muslim leaders, the more unsettling issue is whether the al Qaeda leader’s burial at sea was contrary to Islamic practice.

The White House said on Tuesday that bin Laden had resisted the U.S. team which stormed his Pakistan hideout and that there had been concerns he would “oppose the capture operation”. Spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify what sort of resistance bin Laden offered but added: “We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed ... in the compound.”

Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told German TV the operation could have incalculable consequences in the Arab world at a time of unrest there. “It was quite clearly a violation of international law.”

It was a view echoed by high-profile Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson. “It’s not justice. It’s a perversion of the term. Justice means taking someone to court, finding them guilty upon evidence and sentencing them,” Robertson told Australian Broadcasting Corp television from London.

“This man has been subject to summary execution, and what is now appearing after a good deal of disinformation from the White House is it may well have been a cold-blooded assassination.”

Robertson said bin Laden should have stood trial, just as World War Two Nazis were tried at Nuremburg or former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague after his arrest in 2001.

“The last thing he wanted was to be put on trial, to be convicted and to end his life in a prison farm in upstate New York. What he wanted was exactly what he got - to be shot in mid-jihad and get a fast track to paradise and the Americans have given him that.”

Gert-Jan Knoops, a Dutch-based international law specialist, said bin Laden should have been arrested and extradited to the United States. “The Americans say they are at war with terrorism and can take out their opponents on the battlefield,” Knoops said.

“But in a strictly formal sense, this argument does not stand up.” A senior Muslim cleric in New Delhi, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, said U.S. troops could have easily captured bin Laden.

“America is promoting jungle rule everywhere, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan or Libya. People have remained silent for long but now it has crossed all limits.”