PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Shakil Afridi has languished in jail for years — since2011, when the Pakistani doctor used a vaccination scam in an attempt toidentify Osama bin Laden’s home, aiding U.S. Navy Seals who tracked andkilled the al-Qaida leader.
Americans might wonder how Pakistan could imprison a man who helped trackdown the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Pakistanis are apt to ask adifferent question: how could the United States betray its trust andcheapen its sovereignty with a secret nighttime raid that shamed themilitary and its intelligence agencies?
“The Shakil Afridi saga is the perfect metaphor for U.S-Pakistan relations”— a growing tangle of mistrust and miscommunication that threatens tojeopardize key efforts against terrorism, said Michael Kugelman, Asiaprogram deputy director at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
The U.S. believes its financial support entitles it to Pakistan’s backingin its efforts to defeat the Taliban — as a candidate, Donald Trump pledgedto free Afridi, telling Fox News in April 2016 he would get him out ofprison in “two minutes. … Because we give a lot of aid to Pakistan.” ButPakistan is resentful of what it sees as U.S. interference in its affairs.
Mohammed Amir Rana, director of the independent Pakistan Institute of PeaceStudies in Islamabad, said the trust deficit between the two countries isan old story that won’t be rewritten until Pakistan and the U.S. revisetheir expectations of each other, recognize their divergent securityconcerns and plot an Afghan war strategy, other than the current one whichis to both kill and talk to the Taliban.
“Shakil Afridi (is) part of the larger puzzle,” he said.
Afridi hasn’t seen his lawyer since 2012 and his wife and children are hisonly visitors. For two years his file “disappeared,” delaying a courtappeal that still hasn’t proceeded. The courts now say a prosecutor isunavailable, his lawyer, Qamar Nadeem Afridi, told The Associated Press.
“Everyone is afraid to even talk about him, to mention his name,” and notwithout reason, said Nadeem, who is also Afridi’s cousin.
In Nadeem’s office, the wind whistles through a clumsily covered windowshattered by a bullet. On another window, clear tape covers a second bullethole, both from a shooting incident several years ago in which no suspectshave been named. Another of Afridi’s lawyers was gunned down outside hisPeshawar home and a Peshawar jail deputy superintendent, who had advocatedon Afridi’s behalf, was shot and killed, said Nadeem.
Afridi used a fake hepatitis vaccination program to try to get DNA samplesfrom bin Laden’s family as a means of pinpointing his location. But he hasnot been charged in connection with the bin Laden operation.
He was accused under tribal law alleging he aided and facilitated militantsin the nearby Khyber tribal region, said Nadeem. Even the Taliban scoffedat the charge that was filed to make use of Pakistan’s antiquated tribalsystem, which allows closed courts, does not require the defendant to bepresent in court, and limits the number of appeals, he said.
If charged with treason — which Pakistani authorities say he committed —Afridi would have the right to public hearings and numerous appeals all theway to the Supreme Court, where the details of the bin Laden raid could belaid bare, something neither the civilian nor military establishments want,his lawyer said.
Tensions have grown between Pakistan and the U.S. since Trump’s New Year’sDay tweet in which he accused Pakistan of taking $33 billion in aid andgiving only “deceit and lies” in return while harboring Afghan insurgentswho attack American soldiers in neighboring Afghanistan. Days later, theU.S. suspended military aid to Pakistan, which could amount to $2 billion.
Infuriated by Trump’s tweet, Pakistan accused Washington of making it ascapegoat for its failure to bring peace to Afghanistan.
The Wilson Center’s Kugelman advocated a “scaled-down relationship” betweenthe two countries. He said both sides need to agree to disagree on someissues and instead focus on those areas where they can agree to cooperateagainst terror groups that both regard as threats, including the IslamicState group and al-Qaida.
Pakistan and the Taliban sanctuaries it provides are a big part of theinsurgents’ success in Afghanistan, but it’s only one of many factors,Kugelman said.
“It’s foolish to suggest that if the Pakistani sanctuaries were eliminated,the insurgency would magically go away and the U.S. would be able toprevail in Afghanistan,” he said. “The Taliban has persevered because theU.S. still struggles to fight wars against non-state actors, and becausethe Afghan government has remained a weak and corrupt entity that hasfailed to convince a critical mass of Afghans that it’s a betteralternative to the Taliban.”
Afridi spends his days alone, isolated from a general prison populationfilled with militants who have vowed to kill him for his role in locatingbin Laden, said Nadeem. Still, Nadeem said authorities are treating Afridiwell and he is in good health, according to those who have seen him.
There was a no indication whether U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of StateAlice Wells brought Afridi’s case up in recent meetings in Pakistan. But ina statement, the U.S. State Department told the AP that Afridi has not beenforgotten.
“We believe Dr. Afridi has been unjustly imprisoned and have clearlycommunicated our position to Pakistan on Dr. Afridi’s case, both in publicand in private,” it said.
In the past, Pakistan has compared Afridi’s dilemma with demands for therelease of Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who is in U.S. custodyconvicted of trying to kill an American soldier in Afghanistan.
“To America, she (Siddiqui) is a terrorist,” said Kugelman. “To Pakistan,she is a wrongfully imprisoned innocent.”- Agencies