Jailed doctor who assisted CIA’s bin Laden hunt allowed family visits

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Afridi pic

A Pakistan court has ordered authorities to allow family visits for the jailed doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden.

The CIA recruited Dr Shakeel Afridi as part of a fake vaccination program to help United States authorities confirm the head of Al Qaeda was living in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

The plan was to collect DNA material after vaccinating bin Laden’s children as a way of identifying his location.

US soldiers killed bin Laden in May 2011 at his compound in the city.

In 2012, Dr Afridi was convicted by Pakistani authorities and sentenced to 33 years in jail for having ties with militants, a move some say was revenge for his work with the CIA.

Pakistan’s powerful army was hugely embarrassed by the US special forces raid, conducted without Pakistan’s knowledge, that found and killed bin Laden a stone’s throw from an elite military academy.

In October, authorities refused permission for Dr Afridi’s family to visit him, but his lawyer Latif Afridi said the Peshawar high court has now allowed them access.

“According to jail rules, a prisoner can see his family members after 15 days,” he said.

Pakistani officials recently dissolved an appeals tribunal because the contracts employing members and chairman had expired, with no replacements being hired or any plans made to renew them.

The doctor’s former lawyer, Samiullah Afridi, was also shot dead in north-western Pakistan in March, officials said.

Two militant groups claimed responsibility for the attack.

Some of Dr Afridi’s supporters said the US should have done more to help him after his arrest.

The CIA’s fake vaccination campaign increased Taliban opposition to immunisation drives in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which militants say are a cover for spying, and attacks on health teams have claimed 78 lives since December 2012.