Osama bin Laden's aide Adel Abdel Bary living lavishly in $1.3M UK home after 'mercy release' from US jail: Report
Osama bin Laden's right-hand man is allegedly enjoying a cushy life back in Britain. 60-year-old Adel Abdel Bary won an early "mercy release" from the US after his legal team was able to convince judges that he was a major Covid-19 risk because he was so fat. However, photos obtained by The Sun show the ruthless terrorist looking like a new man just weeks after his return to the UK. Abdel Bary looked fit and was walking unaided as he was seen in photos directing a flat-pack furniture delivery last week. The al-Qaeda militant, who is said to have acted as Laden's spokesman in Europe, was convicted for his role in two 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa that claimed 224 lives. According to reports, he went out for a stroll later.
The father-of-six was quickly reunited with his wife Ragaa, 59, at their £1 million ($1.35m) council house in North West London after spending 22 years in prison.
Notably, the photos are a far cry from the picture painted by his lawyers when they told a US court that his deteriorating health gave an “extraordinary and compelling” reason for “compassionate” early release. According to The Sun, Scotland Yard wants a "notification order" against him. Abdel-Bary would be forced to disclose details of any bank accounts, mobile phones, or travel plans if that order is granted by the High Court. Sources told the British newspaper, however, that the convicted terrorist has roped in notorious human rights lawyers Birnberg Peirce to fight the move. Taxpayers face paying his legal bills on both sides considering he is almost certain to get legal aid, per the outlet. Furthermore, Abdel Bary cannot be disciplined further as he has already served his sentence.
His son Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, a former rap artist who posed with a severed head in Syria and promised death to all westerners, left the UK in 2013 to join ISIS. He left the group two years later, and investigators believe he entered Spain a few days before his arrest in Almeria. Father Abdel Bary was granted asylum in Britain in 1997 and as a result, US officials could not block his return. Officials couldn't send him back to Egypt, where he was born and raised, because he could be at risk of death or torture.
Bary's return to the UK was denounced by many as reports emerged that the UK government would likely give him a taxpayer-funded house in an effort to control his movements in the country. "His return remains a huge headache for the Home Secretary. She (Priti Patel) is intent on ridding the country of threats, but here’s a notorious terrorist dumped right on her doorstep.” a security source said on December 9.
Laden was killed on May 2, 2011, after Navy Seals stationed in Afghanistan were deployed in neighboring Pakistan – where he was hiding – to carry out the mission. In November, MEAWW reported that President-elect Joe Biden, the-then vice president, reportedly advised Obama to wait on the Laden compound raid because he was worried the mission might fail, as revealed by the former president's new memoir, 'A Promised Land.'
Obama, in his memoir, wrote that Biden was concerned about “the enormous consequences of failure” if the raid were to not be successful. The former vice president had reportedly said that Obama "should defer any decision until the intelligence community was more certain that bin Laden was in the compound."