Pak doctor who helped track Osama faces murder charge

A jailed Pakistani doctor, who helped the US track down al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has been slapped with murder charge after a woman complained that he caused her son's death during a surgery.
Naseeba Gul, mother of Salman Afridi, a resident of Sipah area in Bara in Khyber Agency, lodged a complaint with the political agent some five months ago, accusing Shakeel Afridi of conducting a surgery on her son when he was not qualified to do so.
She said the doctor, currently imprisoned in Peshawar jail on charges of having links with a banned outfit, was not a surgeon and unlawfully conducted the surgery that resulted in death of her son.

The surgery was conducted in 2007 in his private clinic of Afridi, situated in Bara.
"The case has been registered. Officials have given a report saying that he was not a surgeon. I will have to speak to him to find out the exact circumstances and whether he had indeed done the surgery," Afridi's lawyer Samiullah Afridi told PTI.
The main surgeon of Khyber Agency has told the administration that Afridi was a general cadre doctor and not a specialist surgeon and that he was not authorised to conduct any surgery.

The political administration has registered a case against the accused under sections 302 and 419 of Pakistan Penal Code and section 11 of Frontier Crimes Regulation.

A warrant of the case was sent to the superintendent of Peshawar prison.
The administration fixed December 20 for hearing the case inside the jail. Political Agent Mutahir Zeb will hear the case.
Afridi, who was arrested immediately after the May 2, 2011 operation by US commandos that killed Osama, was convicted for treason over alleged ties to militant group Lashkar-e-Islam.
On August 29, a judicial official had overturned the 33-year jail sentence of Afridi, who was sentenced in May, 2012 on charges of colluding with the banned militant outfit.
Frontier Crimes Regulation Commissioner Sahibzada Mohammad Anees ruled that a judge in the tribal belt had exceeded his authority when he handed down the sentence last year.

The doctor has filed an appeal for a fresh probe.