Islamabad: Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani surgeon who helped the CIA uncover terror mastermind Osama bin Laden's house in Abbottabad by running a fake vaccination programme, is facing threat to his life inside jail from terrorists.
His relatives have appealed to the US government that he and his family members be immediately evacuated from Pakistan.
Dr Afridi was convicted for treason by the Federally Administered Tribal Areas tribunal for alleged ties to militants and jailed for 33 years in May 2012.
Fox news channel in a report based on interviews with friends and relatives of Dr Afridi, reported that his wife and children were “in increasing fear for their lives and should be evacuated from Pakistan immediately.”
The 51-year old doctor is considered a hero in the United States for his role in the May 2011 SEAL Team 6 raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader.Dr Afridi was still in isolation in a Pakistani jail and his bid for a review of his 2012 conviction for “terrorism links” has been stalled since last March.
Dr Afridi's wife and his two sons and a daughter fled their native province and are now hiding in Punjab. They are fearing for their lives because the Taliban and other terrorist groups have vowed to avenge Osama bin Laden's killing.
“I am sorry to say that (the) US government is doing nothing for him,” Qamar Nadeem Afridi, the doctor's lawyer and also a cousin, told Fox News. Both the White House and the US State Department have publicly urged Pakistan to release Dr Afridi but his lawyer said that the US government had done little to help his family.
Qamar Nadeem said that Dr Afridi's brother Jamil and his friends were bearing most of the doctor's legal and other expenses. Close aides of the doctor linked to the CIA have claimed that the US government has “done nothing” for the incarcerated surgeon.
“I am sorry to say that [the] US government is doing nothing for him,” Qamar Nadeem Afridi, the doctor's lawyer and also a cousin, told Fox News in an exclusive interview. “He has been left to wolves and terrorists all around him in Peshawar central prison.”
The lawyer rejected the US State Department's claims that they continue to “raise this issue at the highest levels” of Pakistan's leadership. He said he and Shakil's brother and friends bear most of the doctor's legal and other expenses.
“You know, both of them, he and his wife, were [in] very respectable government positions prior to this situation,” said Nadeem. “He was a doctor, head… doctor in the district, while his wife was a principle of [a] government degree college for women. “But now they are in a very miserable condition. You can't even imagine. He is not working; she is in hiding.”
Human rights activist Zar Ali Khan Afridi, who has faced death threats for pleading Shakil's case, urged the family should be evacuated from Pakistan. “Pakistan is not a country to provide security, and we also do not believe in its system,” Zar Ali said.
“You know that Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by his own police guard [in 2011]. Therefore, demanding security support is not a good thing. [The family's] presence here in Pakistan is [the] worst [of all situations]. They should be evacuated because things are serious. You know, there are fundamentalists and terrorists all around,” he added.
Shakil is jailed in a prison in Peshawar. His lawyer said only his wife and children are allowed to visit him. Zar Ali told FoxNews.com that the restrictions on lawyer and family visits were a “serious human rights violation.”
