Pakistani Doc Gets 33 Years for Helping Find bin Laden

Pakistan jails Shakil Afridi for treason
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted May 23, 2012 7:05 AM CDT
Pakistani Doc Gets 33 Years for Helping Find bin Laden
A Pakistani army soldier stands guard in front of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's final hiding place in Abbottabad on May 5, 2011.   (Getty Images)

The Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA take down the world's most notorious terrorist will spend the next 33 years of his life in prison for his troubles. Dr. Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program that the US used to verify Osama bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, reports Reuters, and Pakistan today slapped him with the stiff sentence for treason. Adding insult to injury, he was ordered to pay a fine of about $3,500—or spend an extra three and a half years behind bars, notes the AP.

The US has repeatedly called for Afridi's release, and the prison sentence is likely to further inflame US-Pakistan tensions over the bin Laden raid and Pakistan's refusal to re-open supply routes to Afghanistan. (More Osama bin Laden stories.)

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