Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad home being sold off brick by brick

Two baths and a homemade TV aerial have also been put on sale by the enterprising contractor who bulldozed the three-storey home in February.

While Pakistan's political and military leaders are keen to obliterate any memory of how the world's most wanted man evaded capture for so long, Shakeel Ahmed said his salvage yard in Abbottabad had become a tourist attraction for visitors looking for a souvenir.

"These bricks can be used by people to build new houses," he said, pointing to a heap of some of the 180,000 bricks he collected from the site. "Some come here looking for just one as so they can have them as a gift."

Bin Laden was shot dead a year ago, after the CIA traced the al-Qaeda leader to a three-storey villa in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.

The site was sealed off and his neighbours were arrested by Pakistani security forces in the immediate aftermath.

In recent months the country has tried to obliterate his memory. Bin Laden's three widows, along with their children and grandchildren were flown to Saudi Arabia last week and the house itself is now nothing but a pile of bricks in Mr Ahmed's yard.

As one of the best-known contractors in the town, he was hired to flatten the compound.

The rubble was put up for auction but with other builders too frightened to bid, he said, he scooped the lot for 500,000 rupees or about £3300.

Now the bricks are on sale for anyone who wants to negotiate a deal for 1000 or more – at little more than $10 a lot.

He also snapped up two olive trees, cooking oil and window blinds but fears that his role in disposing of bin Laden's house could attract the attention of Islamist militants.

"My family is very worried that my life is now in danger," he said. "Now, I always travel with a bodyguard." Abbottabad itself is to return to normal. Along with the house, the security cordons have gone.

The flattened site has become turned into a makeshift cricket pitch for dozens of children who live nearby as the town tries to forget its recent notoriety.

Most residents would prefer to pretend bin Laden never lived there.

Zain Mohammed, 80, lived opposite the world's most wanted man after selling land for the house to two Pashtun brothers who turned out to be working as fixers for bin Laden.

His son was the only person allowed into the compound once it was built, to tend vegetables and do odd jobs.

But Mr Mohammed, who was held by intelligence officials for 20 days after last year's raid, said he was not convinced bin Laden was ever there.

"No one ever saw him there and no one has ever shown us any proof so no one here believes bin Laden was really living there," he said.