Bin Laden death photos to stay secret

US: A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that the federal government is not required to release photos that were taken of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden after he was killed by special forces.

The Al-Qaeda leader was slain at his Pakistani compound in May 2011 by US Navy SEAL commandos, who took pictures of their target's corpse in order to confirm the success of their mission.

In a 14 page opinion, the judges wrote that The Central Intelligence Agency had refused to release the photos "on the ground that the images were classified Top Secret.

"We affirm because the images were properly classified and hence are exempt from disclosure," they ruled.

A conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, had sued the CIA after the spy agency refused a request it had made under the US Freedom of Information Act that all post-mortem images of Bin Laden be made public.

AFP