Hero Pakistani Doc Who Helped Get bin Laden Hit with Dubious Murder Charge

Photo Credit: APShakil Afridi, the hero Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA pinpoint Usama bin Laden’s compound ahead of the Navy SEAL raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, has been charged with murder — for trying to save a little boy stricken with appendicitis six years ago, according to his attorney.

The bizarre charge comes as international pressure mounts on Pakistan to free Afridi, who was sentenced last year to 33 years in prison for “conspiring against the state,” a sanction western observers believe was a pretext to punish him for helping the U.S. Afridi executed a vaccination ruse that helped establish bin Laden’s presence in an Abbottabad compound, a development seen as embarrassing for Pakistan, which claimed not to know the world’s most wanted man was living openly a stone’s throw away from a military complex.

Attorney Samiullah Afridi said Friday that Shakil Afridi was charged with murder in the case of the unnamed boy, who after the doctor operated on him n 2007 in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal area. The boy’s mother filed a complaint against the doctor, saying he was not authorized to carry out the surgery because he was a physician, not a surgeon, according to The Associated Press.

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