By Alia Waheed, and Colin Freeman
A UK-based former senior officer in the Pakistan Army has been accused of being a supergrass who sold the secret location of Osama bin Laden to the CIA.
Retired Brigadier Usman Khalid, a British citizen, has been named as the informant whose tip-off led to the assassination of the world’s most wanted man in 2011.
His family have told The Telegraph of their anger that their father - who died a year ago after living in London for 35 years - has been publicly identified as the source of the leak.
And they have denied that Brigadier Khalid was the man responsible.
Speculation about the identity of the unnamed informant has been rife following the publication of an article by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist, in the London Review of Books earlier this month.
The official version of events - immortalised in the film Zero Dark 30 starring Jessica Chastain - claimed that bin Laden had been tracked to his hideout after a female CIA agent identified his courier.
The White House and CIA have always maintained that their own intelligence agents pieced together the information that led to the Navy Seals raid.
Mr Hersh's version of events could scarcely be more different. Mr Hersh claimed that Bin Laden was being held prisoner by the Pakistani intelligence agency - the ISI - in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
He claimed that an unnamed senior officer in the Pakistani army had been the “walk-in” who provided details of the secret hideout in exchange for a substantial amount of a $25 million bounty.
According to Mr Hersh’s account, the supergrass was supposed to also have been rewarded with US citizenship and to be alive and well in America.
Journalist Seymour M. Hersh (Bloomberg)
In a bizarre twist, the unnamed officer has now been identified in Pakistani media - citing military sources - as Brigadier Khalid.
However, his family believe he has been wrongly implicated because of his outspoken views on Pakistani politics.
The retired brigadier claimed political asylum in Britain after resigning from a 25 year career in the army in protest at the execution in 1979 of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the former prime minister and father of Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007.
Brigadier Khalid died last year of cancer at the age of 79.
Speaking exclusively to The Telegraph, his son, Abid Khalid said: “It simply doesn’t make sense. At the time that this was supposed to have happened, he was suffering from cancer and in and out of hospital.
“My father hadn’t visited the USA since 1976 and had lived in the UK since 1979 so there was no question of him of his family getting American citizenship. He had no contact with the CIA and knew nothing about Osama Bin Laden, other than what he read in the newspapers, just like everyone else.
“He was politically very vocal, so he was an easy target.”
The family also denied claims that their father had played a role in persuading a Pakistan doctor - Dr Shakhil Ahmed - to set up a fake polio vaccination drive as part of a CIA ploy to surreptitiously acquire DNA evidence of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad.
“My father was an honourable and patriotic man,” said Abid Khalid. “He was also a caring, family man and would be horrified to be linked to the fake polio vaccination programme.
“He would have been devastated to have been linked to anything which would put the lives of innocent people, especially children at risk, especially in the country he loved.”
Critics have accused Mr Hersh - the investigative journalist who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prison scandal - of allowing himself to be used to vent conspiracy theories. They have also queried the quality of his reporting, saying that has relied too much on one US intelligence source, whom they say appears to have known little about the inner workings of the operation to find Bin Laden,
The White House described his claims that Pakistan co-operated with the US to kill the former al-Qaeda leader as “inaccurate and baseless”.
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the national security team receive an update on the 2011 mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House (The White House/Getty)
However, since the publication of the article further allegations have emerged to support at least some of his assertions.
On Sunday it was reported that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency helped the CIA track down bin Laden.
The BND spy service - the German equivalent of MI6 - was said to have provided a tip-off that he was hiding in Pakistan, with the knowledge of Pakistani security services.
Mr Hersh declined to comment on the comments by Brigadier Khalid’s family. It is understood that he claims the source of the tip-off about Bin Laden’s whereabouts was not the same person identified by the Pakistani newspaper, The News.
In 2013, the London Review of Books published another widely-contested article by Mr Hersh, in which he cited anonymous intelligence sources blaming the Nusra Front jihadist group rather than the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for the August 2013 sarin gas attack in Ghouta, Damascus.
Events since the death of Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011, ending a hunt which had began in the early 1990s. But that was not the end of the story.
Bin Laden's compound on fire after the raid
Bin Laden is killed in a firefight with Seal Team Six – covert US forces – in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, northeast of the capital Islamabad.
An Afghan health worker administers the polio vaccine to a child on the outskirts of Jalalabad. A scheme like this was used by the CIA in Pakistan
Revealed that the CIA organised a fake vaccination campaign in the area they suspected bin Laden of living in, to try and get his family's DNA. Shakil Afridi, lead doctor, is arrested.
August 2011
Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad
The New Yorker publishes the first detailed account of the raid from those directly involved, written by a staff journalist who pieced together various sources.
May 2012
Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA find bin Laden
Dr Afridi is sentenced to 33 years in prison – charged with aiding the banned Islamist group Lashkar-e-Islam.
September 2012
Matt Bissonnette discussing his book
Matt Bissonnette, a member of the Seal Team which killed bin Laden,writes No Easy Day – under the pen name Mark Owen. It was not vetted by the Pentagon.
October 2012
The scene inside the Situation Room in the White House, during the raid
The Finish, described as the first account of the raid from President Barack Obama's perspective, is written by Mark Bowden.
November 2012
Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Seven members of Seal Team Six are reprimanded for working as consultants on a video game, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.
December 2012
Zero Dark Thirty, starring Jessica Chastain
Zero Dark Thirty, the Kathryn Bigelow-directed film about the raid, opens in cinemas. The director was given access to CIA members.
February 2013
How Seal Team Six were depicted in the film Zero Dark Thirty
Esquire magazine publishes an interview with the man who killed bin Laden, identified only as "The Shooter".
July 2013
Osama bin Laden's compound was close to Pakistan's military academy in Abbottabad
A report commissioned by Pakistan, angered by the US failure to inform them of their mission, describes the raid as a "major violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
August 2013
Dr Afridi at work in Pakistan
Dr Afridi's conviction overturned. Three months later, however, he was charged with murder relating to a patient he had treated eight years previously.
May 2014
No Easy Day tells Matt Bissonnette's version of events during the raid
The US justice department opens a criminal investigation into Bissonnette's book. Seals are expected to remain silent about their work.
October 2014
A scene from the film Zero Dark Thirty
US Navy Special Warfare Command writes to all Seals urging them to remain "quiet professionals".
November 2014
Rob O'Neill, the Seal Team Six member who shot dead bin Laden
Rob O'Neill comes forward to say that he was the man who killed bin Laden.
December 2014
The identity of the CIA analyst described as "the real Maya" is revealed
The woman who played a key role in tracking down bin Laden - Maya, in the film Zero Dark Thirty - is "outed".
May 2015
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