Charges against bin Laden officially dropped

A federal court in New York officially dismissed on Friday the 13-year-old federal court case against Osama bin Laden, the former al Qaeda leader who was killed in a U.S. raid in May, U.S. media reported.

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan granted a request from prosecutors to drop all charges against bin Laden, given that he is dead.

Bin Laden was indicted back in 1998 for supporting an ambush in which 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in Somalia in 1993. Charges were subsequently added to include the August 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which claimed the lives of more than 200 people, and the 2000 suicide bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole, which killed 17 sailors.

The charges against the slain al Qaeda leader do not include his role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Bin Laden was killed in early May in a raid by U.S. Navy SEALs on his compound in Abbottabad, 50 kilometers from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. His body has been buried at sea.

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