Washington, June 18 (ANI): A US judge has officially dismissed all criminal charges against Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following his death in a military raid on his hideout in Pakistan.
US District Court judge Lewis Kaplan issued an order called 'nolle prosequi', which means 'do not prosecute' in Latin, a typical legal move once a defendant is deceased, the Daily Mail reports.
Osama was indicted back in 1998 in the Southern District of New York for his role in the attack on the US. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed over 200 people, including a dozen Americans.
The indictment was later revised to charge Osama in the dual bombings of two American embassies in East Africa that killed 224 on August 7, 1998, and in the suicide attack on the USS Cole in 2000.
None of the charges involved the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.
The court filing included an affidavit by a senior US Department of Justice official describing the US military raid on Osama's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May.
After reciting Osama's multiple aliases and then listing the counts against him, Assistant US Attorney Nicholas Lewin provided evidence that Osama was actually killed in the raid, including the confirmation of his identity by DNA analysis and facial recognition analysis.
"The possibility of a mistaken identification is approximately one in 11.8 quadrillion," the official wrote.
The document also made a passing reference to a "significant quantity" of terrorist network material recovered during the raid, including "correspondence between Osama and other senior Al-Qaeda leaders that concerns a range of Al-Qaeda issues." (ANI)
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