Treasure Hunter to plumb the depths for Bin Laden's Body

A California treasure hunter claims he is about to embark on a search to recover the body of Osama Bin Laden.

Bill Warren, a career deep sea wreck explorer and diver, says he has backers in New York, Scotland and Chicago who are investing in the search to find the Al Qaida terrorist's remains.

According to the Pentagon, Bin Laden's corpse was buried at sea from a deck on the USS Carl Vinson on the morning of May 2, hours after he was killed in a Navy Seals operation on a secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

"I am doing it because I am a patriotic American who wants to know the truth," Warren, 59, told the US news outlet TMZ. "I do it for the world.

Warren's boat is anchored in Western Indian waters and he will use side-scanning radar to try to locate the body bag.

According to the explorer, finding it shouldn't be that difficult, and he believes the remains should be in reasonably good condition. He says the corpse is in a rubber-lined canvas body bag weighed down by 200 pounds (90.7 kilogrammes) of lead.

Warren plans to televise his location and recovery of the body, and then take photographs and DNA samples.

He believes the expedition to the North Arabian Sea will cost around $400,000 and he says he knows the depth and general location of where the burial took place.