The lapis lazuli paperweight
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The lapis lazuli paperweight is a piece of unworked stone John Kiriakou says he removed from a house belonging to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and has kept ever since. He mentioned it on the DeProgram programme in August 2025, in the middle of describing his part in the clean-up after Tora Bora.

The object

Kiriakou introduced it as an aside and offered to produce it for a later broadcast: "You know what? I'll bring it for the next show. I have a giant chunk of raw lapis lazuli."

Its origin, as he states it, is specific: "that I took from Osama bin Laden's house."

The paperweight

The function the object is named for was not asserted but arrived at on air. The suggestion, "I like to think it was his paperweight", was met with agreement, and Kiriakou's own summary was hedged in the same way: "I think it probably was, but I took it and I still have it. It's magnificent."

The attribution is therefore speculative by the account's own terms. What Kiriakou states as fact is only that the stone came from the house and that he retains it.

Lapis and the country it came from

Lapis lazuli is one of the semi-precious stones for which Afghanistan is known, and the country's mineral wealth is a subject Kiriakou has returned to on the same programme, where a viewer's question about Afghan raw materials produced a discussion of gemstones, rubies and rare earth minerals.

Asked in the same exchange whether he had any of bin Laden's videos, Kiriakou said no, and answered instead with his account of what was actually found on the computers.

See also

- Osama bin Laden
- Cleaning Up After Tora Bora
- Tora Bora
- The Porn On Bin Ladens Computers
- Afghan rare earth minerals
