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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's foreign ministry said Tuesday it had yet to receive a formal request from the United States for access to relatives of Osama bin Laden who are being interrogated by Pakistani officials.
“The ministry of foreign affairs has not received a formal request from the United States,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua when asked if Pakistan would grant American investigators access to the family.
The White House has asked Islamabad to help counter growing mistrust by granting US investigators access to three of bin Laden's widows found in his compound who could have vital information on Al-Qaeda.
A Pakistani military official told AFP that “so far no decision in this regard has been taken” when asked when Pakistan would grant such access.
“The family's under treatment, they are under protective custody,” he said.
Janjua said that no extradition requests been received from the countries of origin of bin Laden's wives -- Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
A US official had earlier told AFP that the United States expects that Pakistan will allow it to question the women “soon” but provided no details.
US and Pakistani agents will both want to know exactly how much his widows know about how bin Laden came to the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and who may have been helping him to survive in his hideout -- along with the family -- for up to five years.
Tensions have run high between the two anti-terror allies in the wake of the US commando raid that killed bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, in his compound near the Pakistani capital.
The United States has demanded an investigation as to how the Al-Qaeda chief could have lived for years in a garrison city less than a mile from a top military academy and only 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Islamabad.
Pakistan has criticised the raid and denied sheltering the man believed to have masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed 3,000 people.
