A lawyer representing the doctor who helped the CIA track down and kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan fled the country Wednesday after receiving threats from militants, relatives and colleagues said.
Samiullah Afridi was representing Dr. Shakil Afridi, who set up a fake vaccination program near the site of bin Laden's compound in a bid to help U.S. forces find the al-Qaeda leader in May 2011. (There is no familial relationship between the two Afridis).
The lawyer left Pakistan after he was told he would be murdered if he did not stop defending the doctor’s innocence in a number of charges, which the U.S. believes to be trumped-up, a close relative told NBC News on condition of anonymity.
After the raid on May 2, 2011, the U.S. offered the doctor and his family a new life in the West. But in the following weeks he was arrested on treason charges by Pakistani authorities.
Although the treason charges were later dropped, the doctor was convicted of aiding the banned terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. Last month he was also charged with murder following the death of a boy in 2007 after appendicitis surgery -- a charge the U.S. says is an attempt to keep him in jail.
Dr. Afridi helped the US track down one of the world's most wanted terrorists and his reward was to be tried and convicted for adding a terrorist group. Supposedly Pakistan was partner in George W. Bush's misbegotten war on terror which achieved very little. Pakistan as a willing partner is this folly received literally billions of dollars in aid for being on the front lines of this so called only to twice enter into and achieve negotiated ceasefires with the Taliban in Pakistan only to have them reneged upon. Pakistan is largely responsible for the Taliban's existence thanks to its intelligence agency the ISI.
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