Doctor who helped CIA track bin Laden jailed for treason

ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani doctor who ran a fake vaccination program as part of the CIA hunt for Osama bin Laden has been convicted of high treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison.

Shakeel Afridi was arrested three weeks after U. S. commandos killed the al- Qaida leader at his hideaway in Abbottabad, 50 kilometres from Islamabad.

The harsh sentence will provide ammunition to critics who believe Pakistan is more intent on rounding up people who helped the hunt for the world’s most wanted man than those who hid him on Pakistani soil for five years. Pakistan has not prosecuted anyone for helping bin Laden hide in that country.

Afridi was not in court Wednesday, nor was he represented by a lawyer under the terms of the archaic British colonial laws that still govern Pakistan’s tribal belt. But he does have the right to appeal.

The move brought condemnation in Washington. Senators John Mccain, an Arizona Republican, and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, called the verdict “shocking and outrageous.”

“What Dr. Afridi did is the furthest thing from treason. It was a courageous, heroic and patriotic act, which helped to locate the most wanted terrorist in the world — a mass murderer who had the blood of many innocent Pakistanis on his hands,” their joint statement said. “Dr. Afridi set an example that we wish others in Pakistan had followed long ago. He should be praised and rewarded for his actions.”

“I am very concerned about what the Pakistanis did with this individual. This was an individual who, in fact, helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regard to this operation,” Leon Panetta, the U. S. defence secretary, said in January. “He was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan. He was not in any way doing anything that would have undermined Pakistan.”

Although the CIA had tracked an alQaida courier to the three- storey villa, they could not be sure that the tall figure seen pacing up and down in satellite images was bin Laden.

Intelligence officials believe Afridi was recruited during a trip to the United States in 2009. After returning to Pakistan, he took a government job as Khyber’s chief surgeon.

In March 2011, he rented a house in Abbottabad and hired a nurse to launch the vaccination ruse. The idea was to obtain blood from bin Laden’s children so their DNA could be compared with a sample from his sister, who died in Boston in 2010.

Although he apparently failed to collect blood, he was able to secure a telephone number for Ahmed alKuwaiti, bin Laden’s trusted courier, enabling the CIA to confirm his identity. His role has been lauded by American officials who have demanded his release by Pakistan’s intelligence services.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst, said Pakistan insisted that any other country would have prosecuted a citizen working for a foreign intelligence agency, but the sentence would raise questions about its commitment to tackling terrorists. “It looks very different from the outside and this will only add to the list of complaints against Pakistan,” he said.