OBL to be buried at sea

Osama bin-Laden sleeps with the fishes. Wayyy too convenient! And what about the rights of his family? Why should they not be allowed to take custody of his remains?

ABC News' Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) reports: Now that bin Laden has been killed and his body has been positively identified, what is to be done with his remains?


U.S. officials tell me the last thing they want is for his burial place to become a terrorist shrine.


To avoid that, an informed source tells me, the intention is the bury his body at sea -- leaving no definitive location for the final resting place of his body.


A senior administration official tells my colleague Jake Tapper this about the body: "We are ensuring it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. It's something we take seriously and therefore it's being handled in an appropriate manner.‬"


Under Islamic tradition, ABC's Zunaira Zaki reports, the body would be washed by Muslim men and buried as soon as possible, usually by the next prayer (Muslims pray five times a day), although there may be delays under certain circumstances (for autopsies, for example). The body is usually buried in a simple white sheet -- whether buried in the ground, or at sea.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-body-headed-for-burial-at-sea-officials-say.html

EDIT to add:

Updates are coming in now that Osama bin-Laden has already been buried at sea according to Muslim customs. 

So now that really does beg the question, how certain could they have been of his identity? DNA testing often takes weeks, even months. Further complicating thorough testing and identification of this magnitude is the possibility that he may have been a Chimera, which is in layman's terms, a person with two separate sets of DNA. Or, of course, just a sibling.