Shakil Afridi Case: Rohrabacher asks Obama to intercede

Calls Pakistan a 'hardcore, two-faced enemy, not worthy of $2.2 billion foreign assistance.'

WASHINGTON:

Controversial US Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has asked President Barack Obama to ‘personally intercede’ in the case of Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the CIA track down al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound.

The request came in response to media reports that Dr Afridi had his assets seized by the Pakistani government.

In a press release issued from his office in Washington, Rohrabacher said, “Pakistan’s leaders continue to show the US they are a hard-core, two-faced enemy not worthy of the $2.2 billion in foreign assistance the Obama administration plans to give them next year. After Osama bin Laden murdered 3,000 people in New York City, the Pakistani government protected him for years and now they want to punish the man who helped reveal where he was living.”

Rohrabacher has called on the White House to not abandon Dr Afridi and asked that he should be given proper recognition for his “daring act’’.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2012.