Shakil Afridi's sentence reduced by 10 years

The Commissioner of Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), retd Captain Munir Azam, has reduced Pakistani Dr. Shakil Afridi's conviction by 10 years and also reduced the fine by one million rupees as he announced judgment in the doctor's detention case.

Afridi's lawyers had reportedly appealed to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) tribunal earlier to remove the sentence, which was then submitted to the Commissioner FCR for review.

According to The Dawn, although the Commissioner FCR, who is the Commissioner of Peshawar Division, removed one Clause 123 A and reviewed the jail term and the fine, but he has upheld the old judgement.

After the judgment was announced, the accused's counsel Samiullah Afridi said that they would appeal against the decision in the Fata tribunal, as it was unexpected adding that they had not demanded a review of the verdict but wanted a fresh trial in the case.

Afridi had earlier been sentenced to 33 years in prison and fined 3,20,000 rupees as he was accused of colluding with Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) and its chief Mangal Bagh in 2012, the report added.

Afridi had allegedly helped the CIA run a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad a month before the US forces raided on a compound that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, the report mentioned.