Photograph courtesy of the FBI
An American businessmen has claimed that the US government owes him a $25 million (£15.6 million) reward for helping to find former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Tom Lee, a 63-year-old gem dealer, claims that the son of a Pakistani intelligence officer told him that he had escorted bin Laden’s entourage from Peshawar to Abbottabad in 2003, and he passed this information to the FBI.
Abbottabad is the location of bin Laden’s compound raided by Seal Team Six in 2011, and since then Lee has been attempting to claim his reward for the information.
After two years of his requests for compensation being ignored, Lee has now go lawyers involved to try to extract payment, with a recent letter form them to FBI director James Comey saying:
Mr Lee precisely identified the whereabouts of the most notorious terrorist of our era.
A man responsible for the World Trade Centre attacks, the most devastating act of terror committed on American soil, and numerous other assaults on Americans.
The FBI has refused to comment as to why it took them eight years to act on the information, or why Lee has not received his reward.