Emily Brown
A Navy Seal who claims to have been the one to kill Osama bin Laden has been arrested in Texas and charged with multiple crimes.
Robert J. O'Neill, 47, was among the Navy Seals who took part in operation Neptune Spear; a mission designed to locate and kill the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.
The operation proved successful on 2 May 2011, when bin Laden was fatally shot at his compound in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Advert
At the time, then-President Barack Obama announced that 'a small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability'.
"No Americans were harmed," he continued. "They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."
Following bin Laden's death, O'Neill said he was the one to pull the trigger and opened up about the experience of killing him.
On Saturday (26 August), it emerged that O'Neill had been arrested in Frisco, Texas on Wednesday (23 August) and charged with a Class A misdemeanour of assault causing bodily injury and a Class C misdemeanour charge of public intoxication.
The former seal is believed to have been in the area to record a podcast at a local cigar lounge.
Records show O'Neill was booked into jail in Collin County. Following his arrest, he was released the same day on a $3,500 (£2,700) bond.
A spokesperson for the Frisco Police Department confirmed to Insider that O'Neill faces a misdemeanor charge of assault causing bodily injury and a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication.
In 2017, O'Neill caused controversy when he published a book titled The Operator, in which he recounted the killing of bin Laden.
Such missions are typically kept under a code of silent within the special warfare community, and O'Neill received backlash over his claims by a fellow former Seal, Matt Bissonnette, who claimed it was another Seal who had killed bin Laden.
The US government has never confirmed O'Neill's side of the story.
In the years since bin Laden's death, O'Neill has had a number of run-ins with law enforcement.
The Seal was arrested in Montana in 2016 on suspicion of driving under the influence when police said they found him sleeping in the driver's seat of his car while it was still running.
Prosecutors agreed to drop the charge after O'Neill said the incident was down to a prescription sleeping pill, though he was still charged with negligent endangerment.
In 2020, O'Neill was banned from flying on Delta Air Lines after posting a photo of himself without a protective face mask, which were required at the time.
UNILAD has contacted O'Neill and Frisco Police Department for further comment.