Jailed Dr Shakeel Afridi shifted again

Pak cites security, fears jailbreak

Pakistani authorities on Sunday shifted Dr Shakeel Afridi, who helped CIA track down Osama bin Laden in 2011, to Sahiwal prison in Punjab province for security reasons, his second inter-jail transfer this year, the media said.

Afridi, 56, was arrested after Osama was killed in a covert US raid at a compound in Abbotabad on May 2, 2011. The

US has been asking Pakistan to release him. Initially, he was accused of organising a fake immunisation campaign for

CIA to confirm presence of then Qaeda chief, later awarded 33-year jail term for alleged links with militants. His sentence was reduced to 23 years.

Dawn reported Afridi was shifted amid tight security to Sahiwal jail from Adiala jail for security reasons. He had been imprisoned at Peshawar jail but was shifted to Adiala jail in Rawalpindi in April this year, giving air to various kinds of speculations, including the one that American secret agencies were planning a jail break to take Afridi away.

However, the Foreign Office had rejected all speculations about handing over Afridi to the US and said there was “no deal” with the US for his release. His wife, daughter and son met him at Adiala Jail on August 3, it added.

Afridi, a former surgeon of Khyber Agency, had run a false vaccination campaign in the Pakistan’s Abbottabad to help the CIA track down Osama in his compound and kill him in a raid by US Navy Seals on May 2, 2011.

He was arrested from Peshawar later that year.

The issue of Afridi’s release is reportedly one of the major obstacles to the improvement of ties between the US and Pakistan.