Despite the initial plan to build two floors, the finished compound has three. It also adds a 17-foot-tall wall trimmed with barbed wire and an extra residence in the back
Not only did the Pakistanis let a mass murderer live right under their noses — they also looked the other way on zoning-code violations!
They didn’t even go after him for unpaid property taxes.
In 2004, Osama bin Laden’s couriers got permission to construct a comfy two-story, eight-bedroom and seven-bathroom home for the terror overlord in scenic Abbottabad.
Local building inspectors didn’t lift a finger when the home actually wound up three stories high — contrary to the plans they had submitted.
“There are many rules and regulations,” top Abbottabad official Asif Amir Khan told a reporter.
None of the rules were enforced against the bin Laden sanctuary.
The oversights were no surprise to locals, who say Abbottabad’s building inspectors never bother to check whether homes are built in line with their building permits.
If they had bothered to check, inspectors might have noticed that the 17-foot-tall, barbed wire-topped walls surrounding the home and its 38,000-square-foot grounds didn’t appear in the plans.
Also missing from the plans was the extra residence out behind the main building. Americans might call that a “mother-in-law” house, but since bin Laden had several wives, he probably called it a guesthouse.
While records show the home never paid property taxes, it was unclear how much bin Laden might have owed.
The compound’s architect, Muhammad Yunis, included in his drawing for the original 2,700-square-foot home a statement that the structure would be steel-reinforced — an important feature in earthquake-prone Abbottabad, where thousands of buildings were damaged in a 2005 temblor.
But whether the steel was actually used in construction is questionable. A 2007 story in a Pakistani newspaper notes that construction rules are widely ignored in Abbottabad — except by the region’s military overseers, who apply building codes “to some extent.”