Pakistani doctor now described as militant
That characterization in his conviction may make it harder for U.S. to press for his release.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Until this week, Pakistani authorities had painted Shakeel Afridi as a traitor who colluded with the CIA. On Wednesday, they added a new twist: They now say he had allied himself with Islamist militants.
Authorities say the Pakistani doctor, arrested shortly after helping the U.S. intelligence agency track down Osama bin Laden last year, was convicted and sentenced last week on charges of militancy, not because of his link to the effort to pinpoint the whereabouts of the Al Qaeda leader.
Officials released copies of the verdict handed down against Afridi, 48. They show that a tribal court convicted Afridi of aiding Lashkar-eIslam, a militant group based in the tribal region of Khyber along the Afghan border.
Characterizing the charges as related to ties to a militant group could make it more difficult for Washington to continue to argue for Afridi’s release.
When Khyber authorities announced Afridi’s conviction and 33-year sentence last week, they said the treason verdict against him stemmed from his work with the CIA.
In the year since Afridi’s arrest, Pakistani authorities had never mentioned any pending charges against him that alleged ties to Lashkar-e-Islam. Instead, they had consistently said he had been detained because he had been collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency.
Lashkar-e-Islam lays claim to parts of the Khyber region and in recent years has carried out numerous attacks on security forces as well as abductions and slayings of tribal members. It is not on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.
According to the verdict, Afridi, once Khyber’s chief surgeon, gave Lashkar-e-Islam $22,000 and provided medical treatment to several of the group’s commanders. He also was convicted of allowing Lashkare-Islam commanders to use his offices at a Khyber hospital to plan attacks against security forces, schools and other government buildings.
“The accused was providing assistance to [Lashkare-Islam] because of his deep affiliation with it,” the verdict says.
Afridi was tried under laws that apply to the country’s semiautonomous tribal region, in which a council of elders hears evidence. The system does not allow a defendant to present material evidence, cross-examine witnesses or be represented by a lawyer.
Afridi led a fake hepatitis B vaccination campaign in the military city of Abbottabad in an attempt to secure DNA evidence from Bin Laden’s residence. The samples were to have been compared with DNA evidence from the Al Qaeda leader’s relatives that is on file in Washington.
Afridi was unable to obtain the samples, but U.S. officials have said he provided information that helped them locate Bin Laden. Pakistani authorities arrested Afridi shortly after the U.S. commando raid that killed Bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad in May 2011.
The U.S. sought Afridi’s release, saying he is a hero, not a traitor. Pakistanis, however, viewed Afridi as a spy, and a governmental commission that investigated the Abbottabad raid recommended that the doctor be tried on treason charges.
The newly released verdict says investigators had provided evidence of Afridi’s involvement with “foreign intelligence agencies,” an apparent reference to the CIA, but adds that the tribal court lacked jurisdiction to rule on that evidence.
What remains unexplained is why Pakistani authorities did not release the verdict’s language sooner, or mention the militancy allegations against Afridi.
A day after Khyber officials announced Afridi’s conviction, reporters asked Foreign Ministry spokesman Moazzam Khan about the verdict and the U.S. reaction to it. Khan never mentioned the militancy charges, saying only that Afridi’s case “will be decided in accordance with Pakistani laws and by the Pakistani courts.”
Some Pakistani lawyers contacted Wednesday expressed skepticism about the militancy charges.
“First Dr. Afridi was declared a CIA agent, and now he is convicted for assisting Mangal Bagh,” said Abdul Latif Afridi, president of the Peshawar High Court Bar Assn., referring to Lashkare-Islam’s leader. He is not related to Shakeel Afridi.
“In fact,” he said, “the government is lying.”