Pakistan to requisition bin Laden plot

Authorities destroyed the compound in February fearing it could become a shrine to al Qaeda acolytes.

Pakistan has moved to requisition the land on which al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden had spent his final years, an official said on Friday.

After bin Laden was killed by US troops in May 2011, hundreds of people visited the compound which the authorities destroyed in February, fearing it could become a shrine to al Qaeda acolytes.

Authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have now published notices in newspapers asking for any objections to the land being declared government property.

It was not immediately clear what the government intends to do with the plot in the town of Abbottabad, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital, where bin Laden was shot dead in a three-storey building by US Navy SEALs.

"It has been advertised in newspapers that anyone objecting to the transfer of land should contact the DRO (district revenue officer) within 15 days," Mohammad Mushtaq, an official in the revenue's Abbottabad branch, told AFP on Friday.

"In case of no objection the property will be transferred and declared government property," he added. No one has contacted as yet, he said.

After killing him in Pakistan, US troops claimed to have buried bin Laden's body at sea, determined that no grave act as a memorial to the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

According to the revenue office, the land was bought by Mohammad Arshad, a resident of Charsadda killed with bin Laden in the 2011 raid.

One of the terror chief's wives, who was captured after the raid, told investigators she had lived with her husband there since 2006.