Tuesday, July 09, 2013

We let Pakistan imprison the doctor who led us to bin Laden

Mail Online has a story about

Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi helped the U. S. track down Osama bin Laden. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison for 'conspiring against the state'

A secret Pakistani report leaked online on Monday provides a series of stunning revelations about the life and death of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, the long-time Al-Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 attacks against the United States in 2001.

The report, placed online by the Al Jazeera news network, recounts the testimony of more than 200 witnesses including bin Laden's family members.

The report also explores the case of Dr. Shakeel Afridi, a Pakistani physician who used his position as a public health vaccination volunteer to attempt to be admitted into bin Laden's compound.

Although he failed to get in, Afridi got a good enough look at the complex system of locks on the front door to help the Navy SEALs design a specialized package of explosives designed to blow the door off.

He also provided his CIA handlers with crucial information about the voices of the people inside the compound.

Afridi 'met with the CIA operatives [assigned to him] on more than 25 occasions,' the report concludes, 'and received approximately Rs. [Rupees] 10 million from them.

10 million Pakistani Rupees is equal to about $100,000.

The Pakistani government arrested Afridi and he remains in prison, sentenced to more than three decades behind bars. Despite the doctor's key role in the mission's success, the United States has done little to secure his release.

'[T]he fact is that he was arrested 3 weeks after the raid during which time the CIA could have ferreted him out of the country.'

Al Jazeera's release of the commission's report came on the same day the United States government was exposed for going to great lengths to hide its own collection of information related to the 2011 raid.

The Associated Press gained access to information from the Department of Defense under the Freedom Of Information Act, but only after the Pentagon acknowledged shifting documents to the CIA and purging them from their original files, so it would no longer possess anything it would have to turn over to the news agency.

No comments: