Osama bin laden lived undetected in Pakistan for nearly a decade due to failures and gross negligence by the authorities, according to a new report detailing how he was once stopped for speeding and wore a cowboy hat. The leaked report from a Pakistani Government-appointed commission revealed a lot. How Osama lived in plain sight in Pakistan reveals fascinating details about his life on the run and the US Navy SEAls raid that killed him on May 2, 2011. The Government appointed a judicial commission to investigate how bin laden hid for so long and how the US raid unfolded to fend off fears that a military investigation would not be independent. The panel interviewed more than 200 people, including government ministers, intelligence chiefs and members of bin laden’s family before they were deported to Saudi Arabia. But its findings were kept secret until the Al Jazeera news network published a leaked copy of the report on Monday. “Culpable negligence and incompetence at almost all levels of government can more or less be conclusively established by the testimonies of witnesses,” the report said. The commission said it had found nothing to support allegations of complicity but neither could it rule out the possibility of “‘plausibly deniable’ support” from current or former officials. Osama stayed in Afghan border areas, spent six to eight months in the northwestern district of Swat, lived in a spacious home in Haripur and then settled in Abbottabad in August 2005.
Maryam, the widow of one of two Pakistani couriers who provided his core support network said they — including bin laden — were once all stopped for speeding on a visit to a market in Swat. Her husband “very quickly settled the matter with the policeman and they drove on”, the report said. To avoid detection from the sky, laden wore a cowboy hat when moving about his compound, his wives told investigators.
laden was nicknamed Miskeen Kaka, or “poor uncle” by other children in the house after they were told the reason he never went to the market was because he was too poor to buy anything.