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The Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. find Osama bin Laden by running a fake vaccination program was sentenced on Wednesday to 33 years in prison for treason, according to The New York Times.
A tribal court found 48-year-old Shakil Afridi guilty of acting against the state, fined him $3,500 and sent him to Central Prison in Peshawar. Afridi may appeal the verdict. The verdict, the Times reported, would likely have been the death penalty had he been charged under Pakistani penal code, but Afridi was instead charged under a British-era regulation.
President Barack Obama, who has been criticized for taking too much credit for bin Ladens death, has so far remained silent on the verdict. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, though, has called for Afridis release, and American officials are working to shorten the sentence or appeal it.
Afridi admitted his involvement with the CIA to Pakistani officials before the raid and bin Ladens death in May 2011. Shortly after, Afridi was detained near Peshawar by Pakistans military intelligence agency. Pakistani judicial officials recommended in October that Afridi be charged with high treason.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in January that the U.S. had been working with Afridi to locate bin Ladens compound in the months leading up to his death in May 2011.
For them to take this kind of action against somebody who was helping to go after terrorism, I just think is a real mistake on their part, Panetta said on 60 Minutes in January.
Afridi ran a fake hepatitis B vaccination program to acquire DNA evidence from the bin Laden family. Although Afridi gained access to the bin Laden compound, he never obtained DNA samples from inside the compound and he did not know the identity of his target, American officials told the Times.
Read more: Pakistani doctor who found bin Laden sentenced for treason | The Daily Caller
Could be.
GOP Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, expressed concern Wednesday about the extent of the Obama administrations efforts to protect the Pakistan doctor who was sent to prison in Pakistan for treason after helping to find Usama bin Laden.
"This has been handled very poorly right from the time of the raid," King told FoxNews.com.
Dr. Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the Al Qaeda chief in a May 2011 raid.
The operation outraged Pakistani officials, who portrayed it as an act of treachery by a supposed ally.
King, R-N.Y., said administration officials talked about the doctor and his DNA sampling.
"They put him out there," said King, who made clear he didn't know the exact details about what, if anything, the administration may have done to get the doctor out of Pakistan or otherwise protect him. "I'm focused on that they disclosed his identity."
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