[AsiaTimes] Dr Shakil Afridi helped the CIA track down al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden but is considered a traitor in Pakistan. A new law will allow his conviction to be challenged in a higher court.
The doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hunt down Osama Bin Laden – by running a fake vaccination campaign in 2011 – is being held in a high-security prison in Pakistan’s central Punjab, where he has reportedly been in very poor health.
Sources among Dr Shakil Afridi’s family and his lead attorney have confirmed that the jail authorities do not allow his lawyers to meet him. The family is also not permitted to deliver everyday essentials to Afridi, who is incarcerated in a tiny cell just 1.5 square meters (5×5 ft) in size in a heavily fortified jail equipped with high-tech security.
The prison in Sahiwal, where Dr Afridi is in solitary confinement, was built for dangerous and high profile prisoners from all over the country.
It has an automatic locking system for each cell and state-of-the-art gadgetry including CCTV cameras, computers, delta barriers, jamming devices, walkthrough gates, and watchtowers. A five-layer security cover and round-the-clock patrolling by elite Police commandoes make it the most protected jail in Pakistan.
His elder brother Jameel told Asia Times: “The facilities normally available to common prisoners under the jail manual are denied to Dr Afridi. The authorities gave me his soap, razor, towel, toothpaste, brushes, slippers, joggers, socks and vests last time I visited him in Sahiwal.”
He said Shakil’s health was deteriorating in the small detention cell where mosquitoes buzz around at night. “They turned over his prayer beads and prayer mats and refused to allow these items in the cell. The jail authorities did not even allow hair dye, which I bought for him,” Jamal lamented.
Last week, Pakistan’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. During an interview with Fox News, he gave an assurance that the government was still considering whether to release Shakil Afridi.
“He is viewed as a traitor in Pakistan but a friend in the US. So we have to bridge this gap,” Fox News quoted him as saying. He claimed that Dr Afridi had undergone a legal process in Pakistan and was given a fair chance to plead his case. “He was sentenced, convicted and [is] serving a sentence and we expect you would respect our legal process, as we respect yours,” Qureshi added.
Qamar Nadeem, Dr Afridi’s lead attorney, said: “The frosty relations with the US cannot be normalized until Pakistan sympathetically reconsiders the plight of Afridi’s family, withdraws all cases against him and allows him to join his family as a free citizen.”
He alluded to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent visit to Islamabad, saying the government would give a boost to US-Pakistan relations if Afridi was set free. “Whatever effort they make in trying to normalize the [bilateral] relationship will not be effective until a decision is taken to determine the fate of Dr Afridi.”
The lawyer said Dr Afridi was convicted in a concocted case for helping the CIA locate Bin Laden, an act that Pakistani authorities believed was “treasonous.”
He said the charge of funding, harboring, facilitating the Lashkar e-Islam terrorist group was a way to cover the anger of the establishment. “He is languishing in jail for years facing phony charges that were never substantiated at any stage of his protracted legal battle,” Nadeem claimed.
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