| Date: 25/05/2012 Time: 03:19:00 PM |
Commenting on the 33-year sentence imposed by
a Pakistani court on Dr. Shakil Afridi for helping the CIA search for Osama
Bin Laden, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States does
not believe there is any basis for Pakiston to be holding Afridi.
"We regret both the fact that he was convicted and the severity of his
sentence," Clinton said in remarks, late on Thursday, following her meeting
with New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully.
Afrida's help "was instrumental in taking down one of the world's most
notorious murderers," Clinton said. "That was clearly in Pakistan's interests
as well as ours and the rest of the world.
"This action by Dr. Afridi to help bring about the end of the reign of
terror designed and executed by Bin Laden was not in any way a betrayal of
Pakistan. And we have made that very well known, and we will continue to press
it with the government of Pakistan," she said.
Afridi was convicted of treason for using a vaccination drive to try to
gather DNA samples from the Abbottabad compound, where Bin Laden was in
hiding. |