No deal with US to hand over Dr Shakeel Afridi: Pak

Pakistan today said there was "no deal" with the US for the release of an imprisoned doctor, who helped CIA track down Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Dr Shakeel Afridi was arrested after Osama was killed in a covert US raid at a compound in Pakistan's Abbotabad city on May 2, 2011. The US has been asking Pakistan to release him.

Initially, he was accused of organising a fake immunization campaign for the CIA to confirm presence of then al-Qaeda chief but later awarded 33 years sentence for alleged links with militants.

His sentence was later reduced to 23 years.

He was shifted from a Peshawar jail to a jail in Rawalpindi last week, giving air to various kinds of speculations, including one that American secret agencies were planning a jail break to take Afridi away.

Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal today rejected all speculations about handing over Afridi to the US.

Faisal said he was not "aware of any deal regarding Dr. Shakeel Afridi" and the "subject of the reported jail break is being dealt by the Ministry of Interior."
He said that Pakistan and the US were in discussions about the issue of restrictions on Pakistani diplomats and "we hope to resolve this issue amicably."