This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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A senior judicial official has directed to send Dr Shakil Afridi – a Pakistani citizen who helped American forces to locate Osama bin Laden – to trial once again. Dr Afridi was previously convicted of conspiring against the state and was sentenced to thirty-three years in prison.
According to the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) commissioner Sahibzada Mohammad Anis, the judge who heard Dr Afridi’s trial was not authorized to do so. Anis has ordered his retrial, citing procedural problems with the initial trial. The US has always criticized strict legal action against Dr Afridi, alleging that it will raise questions at Pakistan’s willingness to locate Laden.
“His (Dr Afridi’s) actions may well have been prompted by the declared policy of the State to fight all forms of terrorism. Irrespective of the charge against him, there was no reason for trying Afridi in a tribal court, when the supposed offence had taken place in the garrison city of Abbottabad. Such treatment had given rise to perceptions that the only reason he was tried by a tribal court was to deprive him of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution,” said the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in statement.
On the other hand, Dr Afridi was never tried or convicted for helping the CIA with their hunt for Laden. He was only convicted of providing financial and medical help to radicals living at the Pak-Afghan border. Moreover, the US has been putting undue pressure on the government of Pakistan to release Dr Afridi. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Thursday 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.
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