LITTLE ROCK — Tribal court documents show that the Pakistani doctor who was sentenced to 33 years in prison after helping the CIA track down Osama bin Laden had not been charged with treason, as some Pakistani officials had initially reported.
The doctor, Shakil Afridi, who was tried under Pakistan’s opaque tribal justice system, was instead convicted of colluding with a local Islamist warlord, to whom he was accused of donating more than $20,000.
The revelation was detailed in afive-page court order that was first reported in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.
News of Afridi’s conviction a week ago triggered fury in Washington, and lawmakers there voted to cut $33 million in U.S. aid to Pakistan, $1 million for each year of his sentence; some suggested U.S. aid to the country should be cut completely.
The CIA paid Afridi to run a vaccination program in Abbottabad in March and April 2011 as cover for an intelligence operation to establish that bin Laden and his family were living in a large threestory house in the town.
Three weeks after the Navy SEAL raid that killed bin Laden on May 2, 2011, Afridi was picked up by Pakistani intelligence and has not been seen since. Despite intense media speculation that Afridi would face treason charges in a regular court, his case was moved to the Khyber region in the tribal belt, which operates under the Frontier Crimes Regulations, an arcane, colonial-era legal system.
In a private hearing in early May, the four-man council of tribal elders that heard Afridi’s case declined to examine the allegations of CIA ties, citing lack of jurisdiction.Instead the court focused on Afridi’s links to Mangal Bagh, an Islamist warlord whose fighters are battling the Pakistani army in the Khyber region. He was convicted on May 23 and ordered to pay $3,500 in fines in addition to his lengthy prison sentence.
But Pakistani analysts say that despite the harsh sentence, the fact that he was convicted under tribal law could ultimately work in Afridi’s favor, leaving more room for an early release - or perhaps even an exchange deal with the United States, said AsadDurrani, a former head of the main Pakistani military intelligence agency.
“In a context like this, between Pakistan and the U.S., people tend to be bargained for and exchanged,” Durrani said.
Citing intelligence reports, the conviction order noted Afridi’s “love for Mangal Bagh,” saying their association was an “open secret.” The order claimed Afridi donated $22,222 to his cause, the anti-government militant group Lashkar-e-Islam, and provided medical assistance to its commanders.
The order accused Afridi, as a supporter of Lashkar-e-Islam, of embracing an “ideology based on hatred” that sought to overthrow the government.
It could be several years before the United States and Pakistan, whose relations are at a historic low, are in a position to negotiate for Afridi.
In the meantime, his safety is at issue. The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has asked the federal government to transfer Afridi out of the Peshawar jail where he is being held, over fears that he could be killed.
“There is a serious threat to his life inside the prison due to the presence of a large number of militants incarcerated in the overcrowded Peshawar Jail,” noted a letter sent this week to the Interior Ministry, and seen by The New York Times.
Afridi should be transferred to another province, the letter urged, because every facility in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also holds militants.
“The matter may be given top priority,” it said.
In other developments, the United Nations said Wednesday that the number of Afghan civilians killed so far this year dropped 36 percent compared with last, the first time the death toll has declined over multiple months since the U.N. started keeping track.
The senior U.N. envoy for Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, called the trend promising but cautioned that too many civilians were still being caught up in the violence as insurgents fight Afghan and foreign forces.
Kubis’ office said 579 civilians were killed in the first four months of this year, down from 898 killed in the same period of 2011. The number of wounded dropped from 1,373 to 1,216 in the January to April period.
Information for this article was contributed by Heidi Vogt, Amir Shah, Rahim Faiez and Sebastian Abbot of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 05/31/2012