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Pakistan doctor who helped cia find osama bin laden sentenced by ferujkll sdff
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Pakistan doctor who helped cia find osama bin laden sentenced |
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ISLAMABAD , Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who led a phony vaccination campaign aimed at helping the CIA pinpoint Osama bin Laden 's whereabouts was convicted of treason Wednesday and sentenced to33 years in prison, a decision that is likely to further frayWashington's fragile relations with Islamabad. U.S. officials have been seeking the release of Shakeel Afridisince his arrest by Pakistani authorities after the secret Americancommando raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader in his sprawlingcompound in the garrison city of Abbottabad a year ago. In January, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told CBS' "60 Minutes" that Afridi had provided intelligence that assisted the raid andcriticized Pakistan's arrest of someone involved in helping trackdown the world's most wanted man.
From the start, however, Pakistani authorities have regarded Afridias a traitor and have ignored Washington's calls for his release.He was tried in a tribal court in Khyber, the region along theAfghan border where he had been the chief surgeon. The trial washeld behind closed doors, and no media were allowed. Under Pakistani law, Afridi could have been given the deathpenalty. In addition to prison, he was fined about $3,500.
The phony hepatitis B vaccination scheme Afridi oversaw was aimed at obtaining DNA evidence from Bin Laden's residence, a three-story compound downthe road from Pakistan's version of West Point and just two hours' drive from the capital, Islamabad. DNA sampleswould have allowed U.S. authorities to compare that evidence withDNA from Bin Laden relatives that was on file in Washington. It is not known when the CIA recruited Afridi for the vaccinationruse, but he carried it out in the weeks preceding the May 2, 2011,raid.
The doctor and his team of healthcare workers were unable toobtain DNA samples from the Bin Laden compound, but Panetta told"60 Minutes" that he provided information to the agency that was"very helpful." "For [Pakistan] to take this kind of action against somebody whowas helping to go after terrorism, I just think is a real mistakeon their part," Panetta said during the interview. However, Afridi's vaccination ruse also severely hampered the workin Pakistan of numerous Western aid organizations, which reportedbeing harassed by Pakistani intelligence agents suspicious of thosegroups' affiliations. Some have reported difficulties in gettingvisas renewed for their Pakistan-based workers, while others saythey are under constant surveillance by authorities or have hadworkers detained. A letter to the CIA in February by an alliance of nearly 200 U.S.aid and relief groups, many of which do work in Pakistan, sharplycriticized the agency for using humanitarian work as a cover forintelligence gathering. "Since reports of the CIA campaign first surfaced last summer, wehave seen a continued erosion of U.S.
NGOs' ability to delivercritical humanitarian programs in Pakistan as well as an uptick intargeted violence against humanitarian workers," wrote SamuelWorthington, president of InterAction, an alliance ofnongovernmental organizations. "I fear the CIA's activities inPakistan and the perception that U.S. NGOs have ties withintelligence efforts may have contributed to these alarmingdevelopments." Afridi's conviction and sentencing come at a particularly sensitivetime in U.S.-Pakistani relations, as both sides try to patch up analliance battered by a series of crises over the last year and ahalf. Pakistanis were deeply angered by the Bin Laden raid,principally because Washington opted not to inform Islamabad inadvance of the operation.
The relationship further deteriorated in November, when U.S.airstrikes mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at theiroutposts near the Afghan border. Islamabad in effect froze tieswith the U.S. after that incident and halted NATO 's use of Pakistan as a transit country for fuel and nonlethalsupplies destined for Western troops in Afghanistan. Though Pakistan has signaled an interest in reopening those supplyroutes, it also wants the U.S. and the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization to agree to a massive increase in transit fees.Pakistan had been charging about $250 per truck and is nowdemanding at least $5,000 per truck.
U.S. officials have called thedemand excessive. alex.rodriguez@latimes.com Special correspondent Zulfiqar Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan,contributed to this report. I am an expert from Luggage Cart, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as dvd rental vending , computer rack systems.
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