13 June,2011 08:03 AM IST | | Agencies
An eccentric California salvage diver was yesterday preparing a mission to the north Arabian Sea to recover Osama bin Laden's body as proof that the al-Qaeda leader really is dead. Bill Warren (59), has vowed to scour the sea bed to find the corpse and deliver photographic evidence that the terror leader was killed.
Searching the sea floor: Bill Warren is ready to carry out a Rs 1.78
crore expedition to find the body of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
File pic
Warren, who has discovered more than 200 undersea wrecks, said that he was taking on the mission to expose the truth. "I'm doing it because I am a patriotic American who wants to know the truth. I do it for the world," he said.
Bin Laden was killed in his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan in the early hours of May 2 in a precision raid by a team of US Navy SEALs who left with his body, which was later buried at sea. Afterwards the White House said it would not release graphic images of bin Laden's corpse, but the CIA did later show the photographs to select US lawmakers. Warren said he expected to spend about $400,000 (Rsu00a0 1.78 crore) on a two-week jaunt next month. He planned to rent a ship in India for $10,000 (Rs 4.5 lakh) a day, and spend another day for a remote-operated submarine.
He hopes to do a DNA test on the ship if they find the body and plans to take a film crew to document the whole trip. According to his company website, Warren began diving commercially when he started his sea urchin business in 1972 and has found one shipwreck, an English merchant ship in Santa Cruz Island.
"The Obama administration should have released the photo, like we did with Billy the Kid, or [John] Dillinger, or even Saddam Hussein," said Warren. "I have a Russian girlfriend, and she tells me that over there, in intelligence circles, they don't believe bin Laden's really dead." Bin Laden was buried at sea from the carrier USS Carl Vinson to adhere to Muslim funeral rites.
200
Number of undersea wrecks Bill Warren has discovered in his career
Who is Bill Warren?
Bill Warren is an undersea diver from California. He started his business in 1972 and has run several salvage companies. The first shipwreck he ever found was an English merchant boat that sank near Santa Cruz, California.
