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The curious case of Shakil Afridi
Intelligence-sharing agreement is between states, individuals can't undertake on their own, not even ISI officers.
The writer is a retired brigadier who has served in senior intelligence postings in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata
Dr Shakil Afridi has been found guilty and sentenced to 33 years of imprisonment by the assistant political agent of Bara in Khyber Agency on five different charges under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). The charges include “conspiracy to wage war against the state” and “concealing a conspiracy to wage war against the state”.
Two questions have been raised by many people. The first is that why has he been punished instead of being rewarded for helping a wanted terrorist and the second is that why was he was tried under the FCR and not under the regular law of the land. Here is a little by way of background of Dr Afridi, reported in the vernacular media and narrated by a few locals of Khyber Agency.
Shakil Afridi’s father, Mewa Khan shifted to Multan on lands allotted to his father by the British for his services in the military. Afridi was born and educated in Multan and then on tribal quota got admission in Khyber Medical College in Peshawar. In the early 1990s, he got a job in the health services department of NWFP as it was then called. He was posted as a medical officer at Dogra Hospital in Bara and though being only an MBBS degree holder, he performed surgeries in his clinic. In 2008, on complaints from locals, reportedly Mangal Bagh summoned him and fined him one million rupees. After the fine was not paid initially, Dr Afridi was kidnapped by Mangal Bagh’s men and released only after it was paid. In April 2010, Dr Afridi was posted as agency surgeon for Khyber Agency. His first contact with the Americans took place in 2007-2008, and he is reported to have provided them information about militant groups operating in Khyber Agency. Subsequently, he was tasked to get DNA samples of inhabitants at the Abbottabad compound, suspected to be occupied by Osama bin Laden.
Is he a traitor? I think not. Was he involved in espionage, the answer is again ‘no’. Did he help in locating Osama? No, because he did not know that Osama was hiding there when he was asked to collect the DNA samples. He may not be guilty of the charges under which he has been convicted, but he is guilty of working for a foreign agency, and trying to make quick money, and without prior approval of the Fata Secretariat was running an illegal vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, which was out of his area of responsibility. As for the question of why try him under the FCR, that is because he belongs to and was serving in Khyber Agency.
Any agreement of intelligence-sharing is between two states and no individual can undertake that task on his own, not even ISI officials. The CIA breached this agreement by concealing information from the ISI and tasking a Pakistani government official for a job which they knew was illegal. They did not have any solid reason to hide information from the ISI in case of Osama because there is no instance of shared information being leaked and the target was forewarned. If that were the case, several senior al Qaeda leaders wouldn’t have been arrested in Pakistan with the help of the ISI. Of course, this is not to say that Dr Afridi doesn’t deserve a fair trial and punishment proportionate to his crime. However, the US administration is not justified in seeking his release, because they would never like any US citizen to work for a foreign intelligence agency either.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 29th, 2012.
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Reader Comments (34)
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makes sense; after all Mr. Fai the Kashmiri activist is spending 2 years in a US jail for not disclosing that his efforts were funded by a foreign government. Again, I agree the 33 years prison term is too much.
Basically when it comes to dealing with the US its either their way or the highway. You are either with them or against them. There is never any middle ground. No wonder they hate the Swiss because they have the gall to be neutral!
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Instead of using reason and explaining, our big shots have proceeded and acted outside the law and charged a man for a crime that he did not commit and punished him to spite an ally that we need. Now no matter how Dr. Afridi, a pakistani citizen, is treated by Pakistan (and fairly is out of the question is this land of ours) the damage to Pakistan’s reputation internationally has been done. The message that the world has received is that helping the intelligence agency of an ally fighting Al-Qaeda is “waging war on Pakistan”. We truly are geniuses.
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Both USA and Israel, have declared that they are searching for NAZI war crime suspects.
Suppose an American citizen, assits Israel intelligence agency Mosad, in locating a non-US citizen and Nazi-war crime suspect living illegally in USA.
Do you think USA will prosecute and punish the US citizen for assisting Mosad to locate a NAZI war crime suspect ? Most likely USA will reward him and the US Congress may even honor him. He will be a hero in USA.
The case of Afridi, assisting USA , in locating Mr Osama , who supposedly both USA and Pak army were looking for , and supposedly consider common enemy, is similar.
Now judge the Pak reaction for yourself and see the difference.Recommend
Jurisprudence says that normally the jurisdiction to try lies with the court where the crime has been committed ( i.e Abbottabad ) and not at the place of your employer.However author could have obtained& mentioned Legal experts’ advice in the article.
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@Maulana Diesel: “after all Mr. Fai the Kashmiri activist is spending 2 years in a US jail for not disclosing that his efforts were funded by a foreign government.”
Fai was convicted after due process of law. Afridi was not convicted under Pakistani penal code but under FCR. FCR only applies to crimes committed in FATA NOT under settled areas which Abbotabad definitely is. Afridi did not have legal representation. Finally he was not charged with running an authorized vaccination campaign – which is what he is accused of. HE was charged with waging a war against Pakistan. Fai was not charged of something completely different from what he actually did. So comparison to Fai are not relevant.
Comparison to Jonathan Pollard are not relevant either because Pollard was convicted of selling state secrets. No-one in Pakistan claims that OBL’s presence in Abbotabad was a state secret.
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Dr.shakeel Afridi should be awarded galantry award by Palistani government and noble prize from the international community. He is is a brave son of the soil.
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I would like learned brigadier to wrIte another piece under the title “The Curious Case of a Most Wanted Fugitive” The protectors of the person (OBL) who actually waged war on Pakistan go unpunished. Were they acting in their individual capacity, or on behalf of state? Or this kind of hair splitting is irrelevent in their case?
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Good article but I still think Afridi is a traitor.
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@Babloo:
@Ejaaz:
I agree with both of you. You have saved me from typing. Thanks and regards,
Mirza
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@Maulana Diesel
‘No wonder they hate the Swiss because they have the gall to be neutral!’
And equally the Americans didn’t have the gall to bomb the swiss for their nutrality.
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“Any agreement of intelligence-sharing is between two states and no individual can undertake that task on his own, not even ISI officials.”
And yet the ex-DG-ISI could be found holed up with Mansoor Ijaz in a hotel room in London earlier this year on his own prerogative without any such orders to do so. What a tangled web we weave.
“They did not have any solid reason to hide information from the ISI in case of Osama because there is no instance of shared information being leaked and the target was forewarned.”
Didn’t General Ziauddin Butt allege that Brigadier Ijaz Shah built the house OBL stayed in? This was admittedly after the fact but suspicion seems to be enough to condemn the accused parties eg. memogate.
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*@all those whining about the FCR *
Had this man been tried under consitutional law and awarded death penalty you would still be whining. If anything he has gotten lucky. As for the completely misplaced Nazi hunt example, Shakil Afridi didnt not even know who he was spying on. He was in it for the quick buck, for all you know he could have spied on millitary intelligence or nuclear assets and passed it on to the Americans for the money. So to cut him out to be a sort of a hero just because coincidentally turned out to be OBL is an immature half-baked reasoning.
Before you rush to comment please look up the record of the number of Americans that have been jailed over the years for spying for Mossad/Israel who is the closes US ally which include high level FBI agents who turned over info to Mossad. No country in the world can afford to have its citiaens covertly operate on behalf of another foreign agency. Its completely misplaced sense of activism to even defend this guy!
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@Babloo:
Try running an unauthorized vaccination campaign in US, taking DNA samples off unsuspecting indiividuals and see how many million dollars lawsuits you end up with ,and which highest award you will be considered deserving of.
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Truth of the matter is it was a war tactic and US got away with it. what is ludicrous is the fact that people are trying to somehow prove it as ethical and legal.
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@Babloo, irrespective of the fact that Afridi should be treated like this or that, example of Israel and US is out of context. It is crystal clear without explanation that relationship between US and Pakistan is not the same as US and Israel Period
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Logically argued and explained, but if it is right that “Any agreement of intelligence-sharing is between two states and no individual can undertake that task on his own, not even ISI officials.” Than why advertisements about prizes to informer of Al-quida leaders were published in Pakistan’s papers?
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The Pakistan military and the ISI got paid by USA over more than a decade to locate Osama Bin Laden. Dr. Afridi is indeed guilty of not just trying to supplant the Pakistan military and the ISI, but actually doing a better job for, perhaps, far less money. Pakistan cannot allow privatization of the lucrative trade that has allowed the Pakistan Military and the ISI to get paid billions of dollars by USA over the last decade. Dr. Afridi was just plain wrong to not only poaching on the territory of Pakistan Military and the ISI but doing a better job of finding Osama Bin Laden as well. He deserves the 33 year prison turn for his effrontery and more. He should be given at least public lashes in public.
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@Author “They did not have any solid reason to hide information from the ISI in case of Osama because there is no instance of shared information being leaked and the target was forewarned.”
Not true. Please read this http://tribune.com.pk/story/186874/us-intelligence-to-pakistan-compromised-report/
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Good attempt at whitewashing through obfuscation.
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Good article. The guy Shakil afridi deserves capital punishment!!
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Babloo,
Israel intelligent are not allowed to operated in USA without their permission. FYI, all Nazi criminals were given proper trial which OBL did not get. In fact in the cases whenever a country decided to prosecute Nazi criminal and that criminal was in another country, formal extradition request was made, but in our cases, our best friend did not even make such request in the case of OBL
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you actually first absolved Dr Afridi of all the charges he was convicted of and then started the character assassination of Dr Afridi i guess your intro above this article makes it clear how you approach things.
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When are these so called laws of land going to apply to our leaders? who in my opinion are bigger traitors than Dr Afridi.
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Whatever the arguments are,
1)Dr. Afridi will not spend 33 years in jail.
2)He will be relocated in US and will happily live off the bounty money.
3)And entire Pak can’t do anything about it.
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@Ejaaz: You are wrong. Helping a foreign agency in individual capacity is classified as treason around the world, whether or not they are allies.
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“though being only an MBBS degree holder, he performed surgeries”, If not mistaken MBBS stands for Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery. So doctors are trained to perform surgeries during MBBS training. Is there any law that bars MBBS doctors from performing surgeries?
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Well said Asad, I may, however interject that a well educated medical professional like Dr Afridi should have weighed the pros and cons (in this case, the con) because we have written history of Foreign Interference via individuals who cannot weigh the future consequences of their actions. Foreigners have always paid bribes to get information (or whatever) quickly thus bypassing the official channels. And why would a foreign agency need with DNA samples of localsy? It just does not add up. Afridi should have been alerted the moment he was approached.
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@faraz: “Ejaaz: You are wrong. Helping a foreign agency in individual capacity is classified as treason around the world, whether or not they are allies.”
A couple of points I would like to bring to your attention:
1. People work for NGOs who are foreign agencies. Is that treason? No. Has it been proved that he knew the information would go to CIA or was he simply working for what he thought was some random American agency?
2. Ghulam Fai was a US citizen based in US and working for ISI. He was convicted because he did not REGISTER as a foreign agent while carrying out lobbying activities. Had he registered as an ISI agent, he would not have been convicted despite working for ISI. HE has been convicted under Foreign agents registration act and also for money laundering but not for treason.
3. Jonathan Pollard was convicted for treason because he shared state secrets with a foreign intelligence agency. Is it anyone’s case that OBL hiding in Abbotabad was a Pakistani state secret that was compromised?
Let me clarify, he should be prosecuted for medical malpractice under Pakistan’s penal code. But accusing him of waging war against the state does not stand the test of reason for the rationale listed above.
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@p r sharma:
Well buddy the illegal act was not conducted in Abbottabad. Dr. Afridi was not tried for locating Osama Bin Ladin. He was actualliy tried for being an employee for Fata Secreteriate and helping a foriegn government for monetary reward without the permission of the State and maligning his profession. The act of vaccination was being done deliberately and knowingly that it would help locate and identify some terrorists in Pakistan.
This collaboration with US Govt was the charge against him and this charge could only be tried in Fata where he was originally employed and the permanent resident of!
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@Babloo:
For your info buddy
http://express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1101534013&Issue=NP_LHE&Date=20120529
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@ayesha_khan: Read your comment with interest, thank you.
So was Afridi registered as woking for foriegn agency?.
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@Babloo: That is your own misconception. The US jailed Jonathon Pollard for life for helping Israel.
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Simple , Hang him , and BTW to the latest updates Hez been convicted for having links with Khyber militants ! So CIA and shut up and other liberals too !
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@faraz, @elementary
It looks like Afridi was not convicted due to his CIA conviction but due his alleged links with the militant group Lashkar-e-Islam.In a country where not one terrorist has been convicted in 10 years, where Malik Ishaq is acquitted, Lal Masjid clerics are acquitted, no action taken against 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, not a single person identified by army in 2009 Swat operation was convicted – this man is convicted for 33 years for alleged links with terrorists
http://tribune.com.pk/story/386265/dr-shakil-afridi-jailed-for-militant-links/
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