Meet the Man Looking for bin Laden's Body

Treasure hunter Bill Warren wants to launch an expedition at sea to find Osama bin Laden’s body.

“Yeah, he was a bad man, but I have a compassionate heart,” says the author of Shipwrecks and Discoveries. “It might have been better if we had cremated him and given the ashes to the Arabs.

However, in Islam it is “haram” – meaning, forbidden by religious law, to burn anything endowed with a “soul” – so doing so may have unnecessarily enraged practicing Muslims.

Warren said he has received an e-mail from the bin Laden family wishing him luck on the trip and that they are interested in giving the body a proper ground burial if he retrieves it.

Warren’s compassion for the terrorist leader’s family may also be fueled by hopes for a profitable documentary based on his search. And if you want to join the search as a tourist, you can – for $5,000 per person, meals included. Yet even beyond the documentary and the tour business, Warren has an even larger ambition expedition, one  many might consider explosive: Warren expresses some doubt that it truly was Osama bin Laden who was killed on April 29 by U.S. Navy Seals. If Warren, a Christian conservative, discovers that bin Laden’s was not the body that was thrown into the sea, he hopes that Obama would be removed from office immediately.

“People in the military tell me that bin Laden is not the man in the body bag in the bottom of the sea,” Warren told FrumForum. “One story is that they shot and killed another man and pretended it was him and put him into the sea.”

He has also heard another version of bin Laden’s death, which says the former al Qaeda leader was not shot immediately:

“He was dragged down the three flights of stairs of the compound he was living in,” Warren said. “He was tied up and put on the ground, and the head Navy Seal guy was talking to our president, asking him what to do, and supposedly the president told him to just bring him back and not kill him – and the Seal killed him anyway.”

Whatever precisely happened in Abbotabad, Warren's view of President Obama is scathing: “Our President says ‘America is not a Christian nation – we are a nation of different beliefs’. We were founded on Christianity here and the principles in the bible,” Warren said. “And we’ve got this liberal in Washington who thinks like the Muslims and caters to the Muslims – and I don’t believe he really killed bin Laden.”

Warren, also a professional singer and owner of a diving company, claims he has had much success in discovering lost items in the ocean – including a pirate’s bone from an old British ship that he found in the Bahamas.

“I stumbled across a pirate ship and buried in the sand was one bone – which I have right here – I guess it’s the arm bone, the femur or something,” he said. Additionally, he has found cannons, coins and diamonds – his most valuable discovery being the wreck of one of the richest ships to ever have sunk, located in Mauritius, Africa.

He said he found 17 iron chests filled with diamonds – but he couldn’t lift them because they were so heavy.

“I also made the government the promise that I wouldn’t [take them] until they gave me the license,” he said. “But even after going halfway around the world to find the wreck, they never gave me the license.”

Warren plans to depart using a borrowed ship – which costs $10,000 per day – from the Northwestern Indian coast. He will take retired Navy Seals on his journey for protection. He warned that he will be properly equipped to fight al Qaeda, in the case that they attack.

“The number one risk is my own government sending the military out to kill or arrest us,” he said, apparently fully seriously believing they will come after him. “Two would be al Qaeda coming out in boats and shooting at us.”

Warren’s search will be conducted in international waters. He does not plan to set foot in Pakistan, due to safety concerns.