Pakistani officials have announced that they are releasing the three wives and several children of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Jeddah-born Khairiah Sabar and Siham Sabar, together with their eight children from bin Laden, will return this week to Saudi Arabia, which has restored their citizenships. The Saudi government stripped bin Laden and the Sabars their citizenship in 1994.

Amal Ahmed Abdul Al-Fatah Al-Sada, bin Laden's youngest wife from Yemen, will be deported to Qatar as the Yemeni government refused to accept her, said the Pakistani Interior Ministry, according to The Nation.

The wives have been under the custody of Pakistan's military since May 2, minutes after U.S. Navy Seals killed bin Laden in their fortified home in Abbottabad, Pakistan. They are no longer required for the investigation of the May 2 incident, said retired Supreme Court Justice Javed Iqbal, the head of a commission investigating the killing of the al Qaeda leader, according to ABC News.

Khairiah married Bin Laden in 1985 and Siham, in 1987. Al-Sada, who was shot in the leg by Navy Seals while shielding bin Laden from gunfire, married the 9/11 mastermind in 2000.

Bin Laden also had two previous wives. The first wife, a Syrian, left him after the 9/11 attack. The second wife divorced him in the early 1990s.

Bin Laden's family is from Jeddah but their ancestors are said to be from Yemen. The youngest and fifth wife is from Yemen's Ibb governorate, 193 kilometres south the capital Sana'a.

Pakistani officials claim the three widows of bin Laden did not cooperate with them in the investigation of their husband's killing and how they came to live in Pakistan.