Doctor who helped U.S. track down Osama Bin Laden could be put to death by Pakistan

DutchClogCyborg · Oct 8, 2011

Once more showing how deep and sorry Pakistan is that their hero OBL died, without being able to save him like last time by informing him.

The doctor should get Asylum in the west.

D

octor who helped U.S. track down Osama Bin Laden could be put to death by Pakistan on charge of 'high treason'
Pakistani government commission is investigating how Al Qaeda chief hid in country for five years
Announcement over Dr Shakil Afridi, who set up vaccination programme, fuels fears of whitewash
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last updated at 3:50 PM on 7th October 2011

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A Pakistani doctor accused of running a vaccination programme for the CIA to help track down Osama Bin Laden should be put on trial for high treason, a government commission in Pakistan has said.
Such a charge carries the death penalty and is likely to infuriate U.S. officials, who are pushing for Dr Shakil Afridi's release.
He has been in the custody of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency since soon after the May 2 American raid that killed bin Laden.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046301/.html#ixzz1aDbeGmzm

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waltky · May 25, 2012

Uncle Ferd says more'n likely dey'll exchange him fer another bazillion dollars in military aid...

Pakistan officials: Doctor's sentence payback for bin Laden raid, U.S. need to move on
May 25, 2012 - Top Pakistani government officials on Friday said the 33-year prison sentence for the doctor who helped the CIA track down Usama bin Laden is payback for how the U.S. went about getting the Al Qaeda leader, and they shrugged off criticism of the verdict by telling America to stop over-reacting and take a deep breath.

You got Usama bin Laden. We're happy he got killed. But the way it was done we're not happy with. We didn't like that," a Pakistani official told Fox News. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to what he described as the fragile state of U.S.-Pakistani relations. The latest comments did not sit well with lawmakers who have been speaking out for Dr. Shakil Afridi, questioning why the Obama administration did not do more to protect the doctor and his family before he was arrested last year. "The reaction indicates how out of touch the leaders of that country are with reality," California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, said Friday. They are so blinded by their radical Islamic ideology that they cannot see our outrage is justified.

In a strong bipartisan display of congressional anger in response to Afridis jail term, senators on Thursday voted 30-0 in committee to cut $33 million in aid to Pakistan one million for every year of his sentence. That move came a day after a tribal court in Pakistan where the doctor was not allowed to be represented by a lawyer passed its sentence. The diplomatic friction has also complicated negotiations between the countries about Pakistan re-opening overland supply routes to Afghanistan. Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos found and killed bin Laden in a stealthy raid in May 2011. Viewed as a hero in the U.S. for helping nab the terrorist mastermind behind 9/11, Afridi was treated like a criminal in Pakistan, a Muslim nation whose alliance with the U.S. has been uneasy.

The latest developments came the same day sources told Fox News that Afridi's physical condition in jail is deteriorating and that he has been placed on a suicide watch. There are also new questions about whether he received a fair trial and whether a federal tribunal would have been more sympathetic. One of the founders of Pakistan's constitution and a top Supreme Court lawyer in that country told Fox News that Afridi should not have been tried by a tribal court and would not have been convicted if he had faced a federal court. "The Jirga didn't have the jurisdiction and they exercised power without jurisdiction, said Ahmed Kasuri, senior attorney in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. And if some court were to apply power without jurisdiction, its a nullity in the eyes of the law. It's got no significance. The appellate authority can forthright set aside that decision."

Pakistani officials continued to insist the U.S. should not let the case dictate broader policy. Supply lines were closed after a U.S. attack on the Pakistani side of the border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November, and reopening them is a key priority for the U.S. "The U.S. is allowing one issue to become so bloated, at a difficult time, one official told Fox News. Those concerns dont seem to be shared by U.S. lawmakers, who continue to call for Afridis release. All of us are outraged at the imprisonment and sentence of some 33 years, virtually a death sentence to the doctor," Arizona Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Thursday. It frankly outraged all of us.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-for-bin-laden-raid-us-need-to/#ixzz1vuDhVEtI
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wgabrie · May 25, 2012

Well, this is bad news for our side that our intel' agent faces death. But hasn't spying, historically, always been punished by death? I think it has only been in the last few decades that Western countries haven't execute spies anymore.

Slyhunter · May 25, 2012

Those who thought Pakistan were our ally were wrong.

snakestretcher · May 26, 2012

He's been jailed. 33 Years.

waltky · May 26, 2012

Granny says, "Dat oughta make `em sit up an take notice Obama means business...

Outraged US cuts aid to Pakistan over surgeon's conviction
Friday 25th May, 2012 WASHINGTON - Outraged over a Pakistani court's decision to imprison a surgeon for helping track Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the United States has decided to cut aid to Islamabad by $33 million.

This means $1 million for each year of Shakeel Afridi in prison after he was convicted of high treason by a four-member tribal court in the semi autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and sentenced to 33 years in jail was. "It's arbitrary, but the hope is that Pakistan will realise we are serious," said Senator Richard Durbin after the unanimous 30-0 vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday. "It's outrageous that they (the Pakistanis) would say a man who helped us find Osama bin Laden is a traitor."

The Senate Armed Services Committee also passed a measure that could lead to even deeper cuts in aid. The panel decided to limit the availability of the $1.75 billion Coalition Support Fund (CSF) unless the Defence Secretary certifies that Afridi has not been imprisoned. Top Republican Senator on the Armed Services Committee John McCain said lawmakers have agreed to withhold military aid for Pakistan. "All of us are outraged at the imprisonment and sentencing of some 33 years virtually a death sentence to the doctor in Pakistan who was instrumental ... in the removal of Osama bin Laden."

The latest decision by the key Senate panel represents about four per cent of the $800 million set aside for Pakistan for the year 2013 including $250 million in foreign military aid and another $50 million for Pakistan's counterinsurgency efforts. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the jailing of the doctor "unjust and unwarranted" and vowed to continue to press the case with Islamabad. "We regret both the fact that he was convicted and the severity of his sentence We are raising it and we will continue to do so because we think that his treatment is unjust and unwarranted."

Afridi ran a vaccination programme for the CIA to collect DNA and verify Bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where US Navy SEALS killed the Al Qaida chief May 2, 2011. The secret CIA operation outraged Pakistani officials. Afridi was arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) two weeks after the Al Qaeda leader's death.

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Lil Mike · May 26, 2012

I guess that clarifies which side Pakistan has been on this whole time.

waltky · Jun 2, 2012

Congress kickin' around whether to ransom Afridi with foreign aid...

Senate Targets Foreign Aid to Pakistan Amid Confusion Over Fate of Doctor Who Helped Get Bin Laden
June 1, 2012 Confusion surrounds the conviction and imprisonment of the Pakistani doctor at the center of diplomatic wrangling over the help he gave the U.S. in tracking down Osama bin Laden.

The plight of Shakil Afridi has become the latest irritant in the fraught relationship between Washington and Islamabad, with U.S. lawmakers already having withheld some U.S. aid to Pakistan and some now pushing for a total cutoff. Last week it was widely reported that Afridi was sentenced on May 23 by a district court in the Khyber tribal area near the Pakistan-Afghan border to 33 years in prison after being convicted of anti-state activities, unambiguously linked in the reports to his involvement with the CIA.

Only after an escalating dispute with the U.S. did Pakistani officials on Wednesday release court documents purporting to show that Afridis conviction was instead for providing assistance to a banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Islam. Reports also emerged pointing to a checkered past, with allegations of corruption and sexual harassment of staff. Lashkar-e-Islam itself has denied having any links to Afridi, with a spokesman telling media the group would kill him if it had the opportunity.

The purported Khyber court document did refer, without elaboration, to evidence that Afridi had been involved with foreign intelligence agencies but said it the court did not have jurisdiction, and so had been unable to consider charges relating to that evidence. The judge recommended that the accused may be produced before an appropriate court for further proceedings.

Pakistans judicial system is not highly regarded, least of all among critics in Pakistan. A U.N. special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, this week ended a 11-day visit to the country, and spoke of the need to address urgently challenges to the independence of judges, prosecutors, court officials and lawyers in Pakistan. An independent judicial system should be free from political or any other pressure, she told a press briefing in Islamabad on Tuesday.

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RevAnarchist · Jun 2, 2012

I would be all for sending in seal team whatever to extract the Dr. Then if that makes the Pakistani traitors angry I would tell them to 'take a deep breath and move on'.

reva

trout mask replica · Jun 2, 2012

Lil Mike said: ↑

I guess that clarifies which side Pakistan has been on this whole time.
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The killing of innocent men women and children by US drones is the thanks they get for aligning themselves with the US war OF terror. Clarification is increasingly becoming less of a problem as a result.

waltky · Aug 30, 2013

Afridi to get a new trial...

Pakistan to hold retrial of doctor who helped CIA
August 29, 2013 — A senior judicial official on Thursday overturned the prison sentence of a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden and ordered his re-trial, citing procedural problems with the initial trial.

The official, Sahibzada Mohammad Anis, issued the ruling because the person who sentenced Dr. Shakil Afridi to 33 years in prison was not authorized to hear the case, said Feroz Shah, a government administrator. Afridi was convicted in May 2012 of "conspiring against the state" by giving money and providing medical treatment to Islamic militants in Pakistan's Khyber tribal area, not for helping the CIA track down bin Laden. The doctor's family and the militants denied the allegations. The case has caused friction between Pakistan and the United States, complicating a relationship that Washington views as vital for fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida, as well as negotiating an end to the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi is photographed in Pakistan's tribal area of Jamrud in Khyber region. A senior judicial official has overturned the prison sentence of the doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden. The official has also ordered the doctor's retrial.

In the U.S. and other Western nations, Afridi was viewed as a hero who had helped eliminate the world's most wanted man. The doctor ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA in an attempt to verify the al-Qaida leader's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad. U.S. commandos later killed bin Laden there in May 2011 in a unilateral raid. Pakistani officials were outraged by the bin Laden operation, which led to international suspicion that they had been harboring al-Qaida's founder. In their eyes, Afridi was a traitor who had collaborated with a foreign spy agency in an illegal operation on Pakistani soil.

Officials in Washington have called for Afridi to be released. On Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told journalists that Afridi's continued detention "sends exactly the wrong message." "We hope this latest development leads to an outcome that reflects the fact that bringing Osama bin Laden to justice was clearly in Pakistan's interest — as well as ours," Harf said. The doctor was tried under the Frontier Crimes Regulations, or FCR, the set of laws that govern Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region. Human rights organizations have criticized the FCR for not providing suspects the right to legal representation, to present material evidence, or to cross-examine witnesses. Verdicts are handled by a government official in consultation with a council of elders.

More http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/pakistan-hold-retrial-doctor-who-helped-cia
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DutchClogCyborg · Aug 30, 2013

2 years have passed yet Pakistan is still a hotbed of Jihad, and islamic apartheid state and an ally of the Jihad groups which commit global genocide.

waltky · Sep 12, 2017

Dr. Afridi’s name has come up in numerous pieces of U.S. legislation over recent years...

16 Years After 9/11, Doctor Who Helped Find Bin Laden Remains in Pakistan Prison
September 11, 2017 – As the United States marks the 16th anniversary of al-Qaeda’s devastating attack, the Pakistani doctor who helped in the effort to track down Osama bin Laden six years ago remains imprisoned, despite efforts by U.S. lawmakers to condition U.S. aid on his freedom.

On Thursday. the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a FY 2018 spending bill which, once again, withholds $33 million in economic and security assistance to Pakistan until the secretary of state certifies “that Dr. Shakil Afridi has been released from prison and cleared of all charges relating to the assistance provided to the United States in locating Osama bin Laden.” The withheld amount deliberately points to the 33-year prison term to which Afridi was sentenced in May 2012. Although he was convicted on charges unrelated to the hunt for the fugitive terrorist, his supporters in the U.S. Congress and elsewhere have no doubt the jail term is payback for his role in the bin Laden affair. Pakistan was acutely embarrassed by the discovery that the world’s most-wanted terrorist had been able to live, undetected, for years in a house less than half a mile from a top Pakistani military academy, and 70 miles from the capital.

Afridi was arrested several weeks after U.S. Navy SEALS raided the compound in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011 and killed the man held responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania. U.S. officials later confirmed that Afridi had helped to identify the occupants of the Abbottabad compound by obtaining DNA evidence under the cover of a public vaccination campaign. Leon Panetta, who was CIA director at the time of the raid, told CBS “60 Minutes” in 2012 that Afridi had “helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regards to this operation.” After being incarcerated for a year, accused originally of treason, Afridi was convicted in a Peshawar tribal tribunal in May 2012 of links to an obscure extremist group.

But his supporters view those charges as trumped up – as did an official Pakistan commission of inquiry, which recommended in 2013 that he be retried, this time for his role in the bin Laden raid. (Reinforcing that impression, Pakistani Law Minister Zahid Hamid told lawmakers in Islamabad last January that Afridi would not be freed since he had collaborated with a foreign intelligence agency in helping to track bin Laden through a fake polio vaccination campaign.) Afridi’s plight has long concerned U.S. lawmakers, and his name has come up in many pieces of appropriation and other legislation over recent years, including the Consolidated Appropriations Act signed into law last May to fund the federal government through the end of September.

The FY 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the House in July, included a sense of Congress clause calling Afridi “a hero to whom the people of the United States, Pakistan and the world owe a debt of gratitude for his help in finally locating Osama bin Laden before more innocent American, Pakistani and other lives were lost to this terrorist leader.” Afridi’s imprisonment has also been cited in bills seeking Pakistan’s designation as a state-sponsor of terrorism. Shakil Afridi came up during last year’s U.S. presidential campaign, when then Republican nominee Donald Trump said that as president he would get Pakistan to release the jailed doctor “in two minutes,” and observed that the U.S. gives “a lot of money to Pakistan.” Pakistan’s then-interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, retorted that Pakistan was “not a colony” of the U.S., and dismissed U.S. aid to his country as “peanuts.” Since 2001 U.S. taxpayers have contributed more than $33 billion to Pakistan, either in direct aid or as reimbursements for counterterrorism efforts.

Afridi’s imprisonment is one of a host of irritants in Washington’s uneasy relationship with the ostensible ally. In his recently-announced South Asia strategy, President Trump put Pakistan on notice over its troubling behavior, in particular its sheltering of terrorists. Afridi was reportedly one of the topics discussed when National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster met in Washington last April with Pakistan’s finance minister Ishaq Dar, acting in the capacity of an envoy for then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It was expected to feature again in an anticipated Trump-Sharif meeting on the sidelines of a U.S.-Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh the following month, but instead the two had just a brief handshake. (Sharif’s premiership ended abruptly in July when the Supreme Court disqualified him from office.) One of Pakistan’s numerous critics on Capitol Hill, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), raised Afridi’s plight once again on the House floor last June. “Pakistan claims to be United States’ number one counterterrorism ally, yet they hypocritically hold this hero in a Pakistani prison,” he said. Accusing Pakistan of being “on the wrong side” in the war on terror, Poe said Afridi deserved a medal, not imprisonment.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/articl...ctor-who-helped-find-bin-laden-remains-behind
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waltky · Jan 23, 2018

Shakil Afridi remains in Pakistani jail...

Doctor who aided hunt for bin Laden remains in jail
Tue, Jan 23, 2018 - Shakil Afridi has languished in jail for years — since 2011, when the Pakistani doctor used a vaccination scam in an attempt to identify Osama bin Laden’s home, aiding US Navy Seals who tracked and killed the al-Qaeda leader.

Americans might wonder how Pakistan could imprison a man who helped track down the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Pakistanis are apt to ask a different question: How could the US betray its trust and cheapen its sovereignty with a secret nighttime raid that shamed the military and its intelligence agencies? “The Shakil Afridi saga is the perfect metaphor for US-Pakistan relations” — a growing tangle of mistrust and miscommunication that threatens to jeopardize key efforts against terrorism, said Michael Kugelman, Asia program deputy director at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. The US believes its financial support entitles it to Pakistan’s backing in its efforts to defeat the Taliban — then-US presidential candidate Donald Trump pledged to free Afridi, telling Fox News in April 2016 he would get him out of prison in “two minutes ... because we give a lot of aid to Pakistan.”

However, Pakistan is resentful of what it sees as US interference in its affairs. Mohammed Amir Rana, director of the independent Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies in Islamabad, said the trust deficit between the two nations is an old story that will not be rewritten until Pakistan and the US revise their expectations of each other, recognize their divergent security concerns and plot an Afghan war strategy, other than the current one which is to both kill and talk to the Taliban. “Shakil Afridi [is] part of the larger puzzle,” he said. Afridi has not seen his lawyer since 2012, and his wife and children are his only visitors. For two years his file “disappeared,” delaying a court appeal that still has not proceeded.

The courts now say a prosecutor is unavailable, said his lawyer and cousin, Qamar Nadeem. “Everyone is afraid to even talk about him, to mention his name,” and not without reason, he said. In Nadeem’s office, the wind whistles through a clumsily covered window shattered by a bullet. On another window, clear tape covers a second bullet hole, both from a shooting incident several years ago in which no suspects have been named. Another one of Afridi’s lawyers was gunned down outside his Peshawar home and a Peshawar jail deputy superintendent, who had advocated on Afridi’s behalf, was shot and killed, Nadeem said. Afridi used a fake hepatitis vaccination program to try to get DNA samples from bin Laden’s family as a means of pinpointing his location, but he has not been charged in connection with the bin Laden operation.

He was accused under tribal law alleging he aided and facilitated militants in the nearby Khyber tribal region, Nadeem said. Even the Taliban scoffed at the charge that was filed to make use of Pakistan’s antiquated tribal system, which allows closed courts, does not require the defendant to be present in court and limits the number of appeals, he said. If charged with treason — which Pakistani authorities say he committed — Afridi would have the right to public hearings and numerous appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, where the details of the bin Laden raid could be laid bare, something neither the civilian nor military establishments want, his lawyer said.

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Antiduopolist · Jan 23, 2018

Who knew people were so squeamish about murdering suspects without due process...

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