Two drowned Saudi sisters committed suicide: US medical examiner

Two Saudi sisters whose bodies were found taped together on the banks of a New York river committed suicide, the city's medical examiner said on Tuesday.

Rotana Farea, 22, and her sister Tala, 16, were found beside the Hudson River in late October with no visible signs of trauma, dressed all in black with fur-trimmed coat collars.

They were tied together at the ankles and waist by duct tape.

"My office determined that the death of the Farea sisters was the result of suicide, in which the young women bound themselves together before descending into the Hudson River," Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson said.

After their deaths, a police official appeared to confirm that the sisters had applied for asylum, but did not provide further detail.

Fatimah Baeshen, spokeswoman for Saudi Arabia's US embassy in Washington, tweeted that "Reports that we ordered anyone related to the Saudi sisters, Tala and Rotana Farea, God rest their souls, (who recently died tragically in NY), to leave the US for seeking asylum; are absolutely false."