The lawyer’s of Dr Shakil Afridi are likely to file an appeal on Monday in the Peshawar High Court seeking help to meet Shakil in jail before June 21 to get signed the power of attorney on his behalf. The lawyers would appear before the commoner’s court on June 21 to contest his case against the sentence given to him by a tribal court. Dr Afridi was sentenced to 33 years in prison last month when a four-member tribal court found him guilty of treason, assisting the CIA in obtaining DNA sample of the Osama Bin Laden through a fake vaccination campaign run in Abbottabad last year. Relatives and lawyers of Shakil Afridi had made several attempts to meet him in Peshawar Central Jail and get the power of attorney from him, but the provincial interior ministry and jail administration did not permit them. Samiullah Khan Afridi, lawyer of Dr Shakil Afridi, said they made various attempts but the jail administration, police department, interior ministry and home secretary did not meet their demand. “Despite these attempts and meeting the home secretary thrice for permission to meet Shakil, all pleas have fallen on deaf ears,” Samiullah said. “There is no ban on family members to meet Dr Shakil in the prison, but security reasons and threats from militants has forced prison authorities to restrict his movement and avoid unnecessary meetings,” sources in the police department said. To a query, he said some lawyer had already got a copy of power of the attorney from Shakil. Samiullah agreed, saying they had got a copy of the power of attorney but advocate Abdul Latif Afridi had announced to move the commoner’s court and a fresh power of attorney was needed for that.
