Pakistani Doctor Who Helped Find Bin Laden Charged with Murder

The Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find and kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011 has been charged with murder in a case involving a boy who died a few years earlier after surgery — and U.S. officials say the charge may be aimed at keeping him in prison, after his terror conviction in Pakistan was overturned. Dr. Shakil Afridi's lawyer told NBC News that the case involved a boy who died after undergoing surgery for appendicitis in a tribal region of Pakistan, and a government official confirmed that charges. A senior U.S. official said the murder charge was trumped up, calling it "just another ploy." Afridi helped the CIA find bin Laden by setting up a fake vaccination program in the city where he was holed up in his compound. After the May 2, 2011, raid by Navy SEALs that killed bin Laden, the U.S. offered to set up Afridi and his family with a new life in the West. He declined, and he was arrested and charged in Pakistan soon after and charged with high treason for his role. Those charges were dropped, and he was later convicted instead of associating with a banned terrorist group.

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