Pakistan refuses to release doctor who helped find bin Laden

Pakistan’s Minister for Law and Justice, Zahid Hamid, said his country will not release the Pakistani doctor believed to have helped the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hunt down Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden; nor will they extradite him to the United States.

Dr Shakil Afridi who is hailed as a hero by US officials, was arrested after US forces killed bin Laden in May 2011 in a secret raid in a northern Pakistani town that damaged relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Pakistan has accused the doctor of running a fake vaccinations campaign as a cover up to collect DNA samples to help the CIA confirm bin Laden’s identity.

Afridi was arrested immediately after the raid on bin Laden’s hideout and was accused of having relations with extremists which he denied.

“The law is taking its course and Afridi is having every opportunity of a fair trial…Afridi worked against the law and our national interest and the Pakistan government has repeatedly been telling the United States that under our law he committed a crime and was being prosecuted”, Minister Hamid told the upper house of the Pakistani parliament.

Afridi was sentenced in 2012 to 33 years in prison after being convicted of belonging to Lashkar-e-Islam militant group.

The conviction was overturned in 2013, but Afridi was then charged with murder, relating to the death of a patient eight years earlier. He remains in jail awaiting trial.