Pakistani who helped CIA find al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden on murder charge

Pakistani who helped CIA find al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden on murder charge
By Euronews
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A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been charged with murder.

Shakil Afridi is accused of causing a death at a Pakistan hospital eight years ago.

The murder charge is the latest indictment against Afridi, who helped the CIA track down bin Laden in May 2011.

Last year he was sentenced to 33 years in jail for membership of militant group Lashkar-e-Islam, an accusation he denies. But in August, Pakistan overturned his conviction, citing procedural errors and ordering a retrial.

The murder charge centres on the death of Suleman Afridi, at a hospital in Pakistan’s rugged Khyber Agency region in 2005, and was brought by the man’s mother, a local official told Reuters.

“A woman blamed Afridi for the death of her son,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “She stated that he operated on her son at a hospital in Khyber Agency even though he was not a surgeon, and that caused (her son’s) death.”

After bin Laden was killed, Pakistan accused the doctor of running a fake vaccination campaign that had helped the U.S. in their mission. His staff collected DNA samples from one of the children at bin Laden’s compound, helping to convince the CIA that their target was living there.

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