Pakistani who helped US gets 33 years in jail
Source: Agencies |
May 24, 2012, Thursday
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A PAKISTANI doctor who helped the US track down Osama bin Laden was sentenced to 33 years in prison yesterday for conspiring against the state, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country's relationship with Washington.
Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where US commandos killed the al-Qaida chief last May in a unilateral raid. The operation outraged Pakistani officials, who portrayed it as an act of treachery by a supposed ally.
Senior US officials have called for Afridi to be released, saying his work served Pakistani and American interests. But many Pakistani officials, especially those working for the country's powerful spy agency, do not see it that way.
"He was working for a foreign spy agency. We are looking after our national interests," said a Pakistani intelligence official.
Afridi's conviction comes at a sensitive time because the US is already frustrated by Pakistan's refusal to reopen NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. The supply routes were closed six months ago in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Afridi was detained sometime after the May 2, 2011, raid, but the start of his trial was never publicized.
He was tried under the Frontier Crimes Regulations, or FCR, the set of laws that govern Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region.
The verdict was handed down by a Khyber government official in consultation with a council of elders, according to Nasir Khan, a government official in the Khyber tribal area, where the doctor was arrested and tried.
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