Dr Shakil Afridi. PHOTO: FILE
Jamil, however, was unable to meet his brother who he has not seen since August 2012. The jail authorities refused to allow him and Afridi’s counsel Qamar Nadeem to enter the facility.
“I had some dry fruits, clothes and honey for him, but the authorities refused to allow us inside or even to handover the items,” Jamil told The Express Tribune. Jamil added he travels all the way from Punjab to meet his brother but is always turned down.
He said he had filed an application in September seeking permission to meet Shakil, but was yet to receive a reply.
Afridi’s two sisters were allowed to meet him in August last year. After that he was banned from meeting anyone as a foreign television channel aired a controversial interview with him.
On November 30, Afridi wrote a letter to his lawyers claiming he should be allowed to meet his legal representatives and also handed over a list of belongings that he claimed were confiscated by the police during his initial arrest.
Afridi is alleged to have aided the US in hunting down Osama Bin Laden by carrying out a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was later imprisoned on May 24, 2012 for 33 years for allegedly aiding banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Islam. However, that sentence was revoked in August this year by the Frontier Crimes Regulations commissioner. More recently, the FATA Tribunal reserved its decision on a review petition filed by Afridi and will announce it on December 18.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 12th, 2013.
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Afridi remains a stain on the reputation of Pakistan and it's judicial system - you should be ashamed.