Shakil Afridi has been languishing in jail since 2011 when the Pakistani doctor used a vaccination scam to identify Osama bin Laden’s home, aiding U.S. Navy Seals to track and kill 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 — how could the U.S. betray its trust and affect its sovereignty with a secret night-time raid that shamed the military and its intelligence agencies?
“The Shakil Afridi saga is the perfect metaphor for U.S.-Pakistan relations” — a growing tangle of mistrust and miscommunication that threatens to jeopardise key efforts against terrorism, said Michael Kugelman, Asia programme deputy director at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
The U.S. believes its financial support entitles it to Pakistan’s support in defeating the Taliban.
As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump pledged to free Mr. 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”.
But Pakistan is resentful of what it sees as the U.S. interference in its affairs.
Delayed procedures
Mr. Afridi hasn’t 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 hasn’t proceeded.
The courts now say a prosecutor is unavailable, his lawyer, Qamar Nadeem Afridi said.
Mr. Afridi used a fake hepatitis vaccination programme to try to get the 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.
If charged with treason, which Pakistani authorities say he committed, Mr. 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.
