Pakistani doctor jailed after bin Laden hunt found guilty of Islamist militancy

Pakistan tribal court papers describe CIA aide Shakil Afridi as active supporter of Lashkar-e-Islam

guardian.co.uk, Jon Boone, in Islamabad, Wednesday 30 May 2012

Shakil Afridi's jail term in Pakistan led to the US Senate cutting the
country's aid by $1m for every year of his sentence. Photograph: Reuters

The doctor who angered Pakistan's powerful security agencies by helping the CIA hunt down Osama bin Laden was sentenced to 33 years in prison on the basis of flimsy intelligence suggesting he was involved in Islamist militancy, a document from his trial has revealed.

The five-page summary verdict in Dr Shakil Afridi's case shows the antiquated tribal court that heard his case refused to consider evidence of his work for the CIA, which it said was outside its jurisdiction.

When Afridi's conviction came to light last week it was assumed he had been imprisoned for his work on a bogus vaccination programme intended to use DNA sampling to pinpoint the whereabouts of the former al-Qaida leader.

The announcement of his jail term provoked outrage in the US where the Senate symbolically cut aid to Pakistan by $1m (£640,000) for each year of his sentence.

But the trial document shows he was in fact found guilty of terrorism, not treason under Pakistan's much criticised Frontier Crimes Regulation, a set of draconian laws first imposed by the British on the Pashtun tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The court document said Afridi was an active supporter of Lashkar-e-Islam, a banned militant group, and its leader Mangal Bagh.

It also claimed he used his position as head of a government hospital to channel nearly £14,000 to the group and gave medical care to various militant commanders.

According to the document the case, which was presided over not by a trained judge but by the government-appointed "political agent" in consultation with a group of tribal elders, was based on "reports of different intelligence agencies" and statements by local people.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former political agent who once administered the same tribal agency where Afridi was tried, said the case would never have succeeded in regular court.

"This sort of evidence makes the case very weak legally," he said. "Finding tangible evidence linking him to Mangal Bagh is very, very difficult in the tribal areas where people can tell you just anything."

Securing a conviction under the peculiar FCR process under which defendants are denied the right to lawyers is much easier, however.

Some analysts suspect the claims about Afridi's involvement with militant groups may have been cobbled together after the court refused to take a view on his activities for the CIA, which happened well outside the tribal areas where the FCR writ runs.

Habib Malik Orakzai, head of the Pakistan International Human Rights Organisation, said the government did not want to risk the case in a regular, open court where it could potentially drag on for months or "be thrown out at any time".

He said: "The political agent has all the power. In simple words he is like a king who does not need proof but has the power to give any person any punishment."

The FCR also keeps Afridi's fate firmly in the hands of the Pakistani government, giving it the flexibility to use Afridi as a bargaining chip with the Americans at a later point, as many suspect will happen.

"In due course escape to the US could be facilitated for some quid pro quo", said Mohmand. The CIA reportedly offered Afridi and his family safe passage to the US soon after the killing of bin Laden, but he refused.

It is likely Afridi did become entangled with many of the leading militants operating in the tribal areas during his long career as a frontier medic – his access to such forbidding and dangerous territory was no doubt what attracted the CIA to him.

In 2008 Bagh fined him $11,00 for preforming unnecessary operations on several patients, the New York Times reported recently.

Mehmood Shah, a former security chief of the tribal areas, said it was quite possible for government officials to be "scared" of the militants they came across.

"At times they try to work out some understanding with them in order to survive," he said.

He remembered that Afridi had "a bad reputation", but not for involvement with militancy.

"He had weaknesses for womanising, drinking and making money without any principal," he said. "When we found he had been interfering with female colleagues I ordered he be removed."