PESHAWAR: The judicial official Commissioner Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) on Thursday overturned the 33-year jail sentence awarded to Dr Shakeel Afridi.
Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign in which he collected DNA samples, which may have helped the US intelligence agency find former al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad.
The FCR commissioner Sahibzada Muhammad Anees said that the previous judge in the case exceeded his authority when handing down last year’s sentence.
Anees set aside the previous decision handed down by the Assistant Political Agent Nasir Khan in the semi-autonomous Khyber tribal region, and ordered that a retrial be held by the political agent as a session judge.
Afridi was sentenced on May 23, 2012 to 33 years in prison and fined Rs320,000 on charges of colluding with the banned militant outfit Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) and its chief, Mangal Bagh. However, the tribal court had not entertained evidence relating to Afridi’s involvement with the CIA, citing lack of jurisdiction.
His sentence angered the United States, which withheld $33 million in aid for Pakistan in retaliation.
Afridi remains in custody and is believed to be held at the Peshawar central jail.
