The mother of the world's most infamous terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, killed in a U.S military operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan has weighed in on the death of her son for the very first time.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, a fleet street publication, Alia Ghanem recounted the upbringing that he gave his son, Osama Bin Laden.
She painted a rosy picture of her first born's childhood, keen to lay emphasis on the love that she brought him up in and absolve herself from any blame for the horrific path that Bin Laden would take later in life.
According to her, Osama became radicalised after being brainwashed by people he met in his 20s.
"He was a very good kid and he loved me so much. He was a very good child until he met some people who pretty much brainwashed him in his early 20s. You can call it a cult. They got money for their cause. I would always tell him to stay away from them, and he would never admit to me what he was doing because he loved me so much," she told the Guardian from her palatial home in Saudi Arabia.
Osama was killed in 2011 during a Navvy Seals' operation that had been months in planning and ordered by President Obama.
He is regarded as the architect of terrorist attacks in Kenya, Tanzania, the Middle East and the United States that claimed scores of lives, shocking the conscience of the world.
His killing was welcomed by many as justice for the lives that his attacks claimed.
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