The compound where Bin Laden was killed has become a ghoulish tourist attraction.

Sightseers have been flocking to the spot on the fringes of upmarket Abbottabad, Pakistan, where the Al Qaeda leader met his end.

While the gates to the terror chief’s compound remain shut, visitors have been given free access to the surrounding area after Pakistani military investigators finished scouring the house.

Local resident Ali Abbas, 43, who has begun a campaign to turn Bin Laden’s final home into an official tourist site, welcomed the interest, and claimed many more visitors could follow from Europe and the US

Mr Abbas said: ‘Westerners are crazy people. Even if locals turn up or not, foreigners will definitely come if it is declared a tourist site. It will be very good for the city. People should visit and see where the world’s biggest terrorist lived.’

Mr Abbas said the compound should be untouched so it could remain a piece of history. ‘They should let media in to photograph the house from inside,’ he said.

‘They will come when the security situation gets little a better, but it must first be declared a tourist place.’

Whether Mr Abbas’s enthusiasm is shared by the authorities is in question, however. Allowing the compound and bolthole to be turned into a museum would risk it becoming a shrine to terror.

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)