12 July 2011, NYT: Vaccination Ruse Used in Pursuit of Bin Laden
MAY 23, 2012
Prison Term for Helping C.I.A. Find Bin Laden
By ISMAIL KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden's location under the cover of a vaccination drive [1] was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.
A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Dr. Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region. Along with the prison term, the court imposed a fine of $3,500. Dr. Afridi, who may appeal the verdict, was then sent to Central Prison in Peshawar.
He had been charged under a British-era regulation for frontier crimes that, unlike the national criminal code, does not carry the death penalty for treason. Under Pakistani penal law, Dr. Afridi almost certainly would have received the death penalty, a Pakistani lawyer said.
Dr. Afridi's fate has been an added source of tension between Pakistan and the United States, at a time when the countries remain at loggerheads over reopening supply lines [2] through Pakistan to Afghanistan.
In Washington, Obama administration officials expressed anger and frustration at the tribal court's decision, but indicated that American officials were working quietly behind the scenes to shorten the sentence or have it dismissed.
"The doctor was never asked to spy on Pakistan," said a senior American official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations against Al Qaeda in Pakistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly about the sentencing. "He was asked only to help locate Al Qaeda terrorists, who threaten Pakistan and the U.S. He helped save Pakistani and American lives."
On Capitol Hill, two of the Senate's leading voices on national security, Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and John McCain of Arizona, the panel's ranking Republican, angrily denounced the court's sentence. "What Dr. Afridi did is the furthest thing from treason," the senators said in a statement. [3] "It was a courageous, heroic and patriotic act, which helped to locate the most wanted terrorist in the world -- a mass murderer who had the blood of many innocent Pakistanis on his hands."
In January, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta confirmed [4] that the United States had been working with Dr. Afridi while trying to verify the location of Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in the months before the raid. American officials previously said that the doctor had been running a hepatitis B vaccination program as a ruse to obtain DNA evidence from Bin Laden's family, thought to be hiding in the city. American officials say Dr. Afridi did not know the identity of his target.
According to Pakistani security officials, Dr. Afridi admitted to helping the C.I.A. before the raid by Navy SEALs that killed Bin Laden last May. That operation angered Pakistani officials, who had not been informed ahead of time and viewed it as a violation of the country's sovereignty.
Dr. Afridi, 48, was detained by Pakistan's military intelligence agency near Peshawar in the weeks after Bin Laden's death. A judicial commission in Pakistan investigating the circumstances leading to his death recommended in October that Dr. Afridi be charged with high treason.
American officials have said that although Dr. Afridi never gained DNA samples from the compound, his work aided the mission that led to Bin Laden's death. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for Dr. Afridi to be released.
In a television interview in January, Mr. Panetta said, "For them to take this kind of action against somebody who was helping to go after terrorism, I just think is a real mistake on their part."
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/world/asia/12dna.html
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/world/two-critical-ties-in-play-for-obama-at-nato-meeting.html
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/world/asia/panetta-credits-pakistani-doctor-in-bin-laden-raid.html