On 9/11 anniversary, US and Pakistan rule out release of medic who worked for CIA
ISLAMABAD: There will be no agreement between the US and Pakistan on releasing Shakil Afridi, the doctor sentenced to 33 years in prison for his role in the US special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
“There’s no deal on Afridi,” a US State Department official said. And a retired Pakistani intelligence officer who helped to investigate the raid said: “There’s no agreement, and there won’t be for the foreseeable future.”
Afridi, 54, helped the CIA to run a fake hepatitis vaccination program aimed at confirming Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by collecting DNA samples.
A few days after the raid on the Bin Laden compound, Afridi was arrested at a border crossing while trying to flee the country. A year later he was sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason.
The conviction was overturned on a technicality, and a retrial ordered, but in November 2013 Afridi was charged with murder over the death of a patient eight years before, and he has been prison ever since. The next hearing in his case will be on Sept. 28.
Last year, Donald Trump said he could have Afridi released “in two minutes.” Pakistan’s interior minister at the time, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, replied that the US president “should learn to treat sovereign states with respect.”
The US Embassy in Islamabad told Arab News: “We believe Dr. Afridi has been unjustly imprisoned and we have clearly communicated our position to Pakistan on Dr. Afridi’s case, both in public and in private.