The elder brother of Dr Shakil Afridi on Friday filed an appeal before Peshawar Commissioner Tariq Jamil against the 33-year imprisonment handed down to the CIA-recruited medic by a Khyber Agency tribal court.
Jamil Afridi said in his appeal that the allegations against his brother were “false, concocted and without foundation”.
Dr Afridi was arrested after last year’s raid by US special forces on al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. He ran a fake polio vaccination campaign to obtain DNA samples from bin Laden’s family members to verify his presence.
Initially he was handed down the sentence on charges of treason, but a detailed verdict later said the medic had links with the banned Lashkar-e-Islam group headed by militant commander Mangal Bagh.
The appeal against assistant political agent’s verdict was filed by a group of lawyers on behalf of Jamil Afridi. The lawyers included Samiullah Afridi, Ijaz Mohmand, Qamar Nameed Afridi, Sartaj Ahmad and Raza Khan Safi.
The appeal said that Dr Afridi had “no association” with Lashkar-e-Islam, and that the conviction should be dismissed because he had no opportunity of defence or fair trial. The appeal added that the convicted doctor was kidnapped by Lashkar-e-Islam in 2008 and ordered to pay Rs 1 million.
According to the verdict, Afridi paid Rs 2 million to the militant outfit and helped provide medical assistance to militant commanders in Khyber. The militants have denied any links to Afridi, saying they fined him for over-charging patients, and have threatened to kill him.
