[Dawn] Pak authorities have sentenced a doctor accused of helping the CIA find the late Osama bin Laden... who doesn't live anywhere anymore...
to 33 years in jail on charges of treason, officials said, a move almost certain to further strain ties between Washington and Islamabad.
Shakil Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign, in which he collected DNA samples, that is believed to have helped the American intelligence agency track down bin Laden in a Pak town.
The al Qaeda chieftain was killed in a unilateral US special forces raid in the town of Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
in May last year.
"Dr Shakil has been sentenced to 33 years imprisonment and a fine of 320,000 Pak rupees," said Mohammad Nasir, a government official in the northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, where the jail term will be served. He gave no further details.
Soon after his conviction, Afridi was sent to the Central Prison in Peshawar.
The court was headed by a deputy administrator responsible for Bara region.
Afridi was charged under the British-time Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) that unlike the Pakistain Criminal Code (CPRC), does not carry death penalty for high treason.
Afridi is the first person to be sentenced by Pak authorities in the bin Laden case.
US officials were strongly critical of the sentencing.
The US State Department said it saw no reason for Pakistain to detain or charge Afridi who has been accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden.
| "We continue to see no basis for these charges, for him being held, for any of it," Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told news hounds, declining specific comment on the 33-year sentence given to Shakil Afridi on charges of treason. |
Carl Levin and John
MaverickMcCain
... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former
foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution...
, the top senators from the two major US parties on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a joint statement called Afridi's sentence "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 Paks on his hands," the two senators said. |
"Without commenting on specific individuals, anyone who helped the United States find bin Laden was working against al Qaeda and not against Pakistain," said Pentagon front man George Little.
Bin Laden's long presence in Pakistain -- he was believed to have stayed there for years -- despite the worldwide manhunt for him raised suspicions in Washington that Pak intelligence officials may have sheltered him.
Pak officials deny this and say an intelligence gap enabled bin Laden to live here undetected.
No one has yet been charged for helping the al Qaeda leader take refuge in Pakistain.
A government commission tasked with investigating how he managed to evade capture by Pak authorities for so long is widely accused of being ineffective.
Afridi's imprisonment will almost certainly anger ally Washington at a sensitive time, with both sides engaged in difficult talks over re-opening NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
supply routes to US-led troops in Afghanistan.
Senior US officials had made public appeals for Pakistain, a recipient of billions of dollars in American aid, to release Afridi, tossed in the slammer
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
within weeks of the raid that killed bin Laden and strained ties with Islamabad.
In January, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
said in a television interview that Afridi and his team had been key in finding bin Laden, describing him as helpful and insisting the doctor had not committed treason or harmed Pakistain.
US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher introduced legislation in February calling for Afridi to be granted American citizenship and said it was "shameful and unforgivable that our supposed allies" charged him.
VIOLATION OF SOVEREIGNTY
The US raid that killed bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad, just a few hours drive from the capital Islamabad, humiliated Pakistain's powerful military, which described the move as a violation of illusory sovereignty.
Intelligence cooperation between the United States and Pakistain, vital for the fight against militancy, has subsequently been cut drastically.
Afridi's prison term could complicate efforts to break a deadlock in talks over the re-opening of land routes through Pakistain to US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan, which are crucial for supplies.
Pakistain closed the supply routes, also seen as vital to the planned withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan before the end of 2014, in protest against last November's killing of 24 Pak soldiers in a NATO air attack along the Afghan border.
Afridi's case highlighted severe tensions between Pakistain and the United States.
He was placed in long-term storage
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
soon after bin Laden was killed, and has not been publicly heard of since. Seventeen health workers who worked with Afridi on the vaccination drive were fired in March, according to termination letters seen by Rooters, which described them as having acted "against the national interest".