Chilling reason Osama Bin Laden's body was thrown in the ocean after he was killed
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
The death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 will remain a monumental day in world history, as the man responsible for the 'bloodiest terror attack on US soil' was finally made to pay for his dreadful crimes.
On 2 May, 2011, Bin Laden was killed by a team of US Navy SEALS at his compound near Islamabad, Pakistan, after more than a decade on the FBI's most wanted list.
The tracking down and eventful killing of the terrorist was a long time coming, but on that spring day, then-president, Barack Obama, announced the news of Bin Laden's death.
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Former US Navy SEAL Team 6 member, Robert O'Neill, recalled the moment the leader of al Qaeda was killed in a conversation held in the 9/11 Memorial Museum, saying: "A foot and a half in front of me was Osama Bin Laden. And I shot him twice, and then once more...
"I turned around, other SEALs were coming in the room, and I kind of stopped there and looked at them. … [One of the SEALs] was looking at me, and said, ‘Are you OK?’ I said, ‘What do we do now?’
"And he laughed and put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, ‘Now we go find the computers.’”
After Bin Laden was killed, US forces circled back to Afghanistan, where his body was identified with DNA tests.
But while the killing of Bin Laden was the main objective, the US still had to decide where Bin Laden would be buried.
Cremation was immediately ruled out, as it is banned in Islam, while burying him on land was never really an option either.
His home country of Saudi Arabia reportedly wouldn't accept the body and burying him on land elsewhere was ruled out over concerns his grave would become a 'terrorist shrine'.
So, it was decided that Bin Laden would be buried at sea, with every precaution taken to ensure nobody found his body.
It is Islamic tradition that a body should be buried within 24 hours of death, with the US transferring Bin Laden's to the USS Carl Vinson ship.
In the Arabian Sea, Bin Laden's body was placed in a weighted bag, before loading him on to a wooden board and pushing him into the ocean, just 12 hours after he was killed.
That came after his body underwent Islamic burial rights, which included washing his body, wrapping him in white cloth and bringing in an Arabic translator to provide religious rites.