Dr Afridi won’t be released in exchange of US aid, Pak Foreign Office

Pakistan will not be releasing Dr Shakil Afridi on pressure from the United States, said the Foreign office spokesperson on Thursday.
Speaking at the weekly media briefing, FO spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam said that Dr Afridi would not be released on American demand as his matter was sub judicial.
US President Barack Obama recently signed a bill that proposes to withhold $33 million from assistance to Pakistan on account of Dr Afridi’s detention.
Aslam said that Pakistan rejects US’s demands to release Dr Afridi in exchange for aid.
Dr Afridi ran a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad in order to locate Osama bin Laden in 2011. A month later, US forces raided a compound, killing Osama bin Laden. Then US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had also confirmed Afridi had worked for US intelligence CIA by collecting DNA to verify Osama’s location.
He was convicted for treason in 2012 for alleged ties to militants under Pakistan’s tribal justice system in 2012 and was sentenced to 33 years in jail. The court could not charge him for spying for CIA as it had no jurisdiction for such a charge.
A court in Peshawar overturned his sentence in August 2013 and ordered a retrial.