Shakil Afridi moved out of Peshawar Central Prison

PESHAWAR: Dr Shakil Afridi, who is linked to Osama bin Laden’s killing in a raid by US Special Forces in Abbottabad in May 2011, was shifted from Peshawar Central Prison to an unknown place by the security agencies personnel amid tight security on Friday.

Sources in the prison told The News that Dr Shakil Afridi was shifted by the personnel of security agencies at around 4pm from the Central Prison Peshawar to an unknown location.

The sources said he was first moved out of the prison in a high security vehicle and then shifted to another place in a helicopter. It could not be confirmed if he was shifted to another place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province or somewhere in Punjab. As the guessing game continued, some officials stated that he might have been shifted to the Adiala Prison in Rawalpindi.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Kbyber Pakhtunkhwa government had been repeatedly asking the federal Ministry of Interior since 2012 to shift Dr Shakil Afridi to Punjab province due to security reasons.

On March 15, 2014 the FCR Commissioner, the appellate forum under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), had upheld Dr Shakil Afridi’s conviction on the charge of having links with the banned militant organization, Lashkar-i-Islam, then operating in Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency under the command of Mangal Bagh. Later, the FCR Commissioner reduced Dr Shakil Afridi’s original prison term awarded to him by the assistant political agent’s court from 33 to 23 years and the fine imposed him from Rs320,000 to Rs220,000.

Dr Shakil Afridi was taken into custody in May 2011 by intelligence agencies on the suspicion of arranging a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad at the behest of the American CIA to track down Osama bin Laden. However, he wasn’t tried or convicted on that charge.

Senior lawyer Muhammad Khurshid Khan had also filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court against the expected handing over of Dr Shakil Afridi to the United States.

The PHC bench comprising Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Abdul Shakoor had heard the petition. The court had issued notice and sought reply from the superintendent of the Central Prison Peshawar some ten months ago.

The petitioner sought the court’s directions for both the federal and provincial governments not to shift Dr Shakil Afridi to a foreign country or any other prison from Peshawar Central Prison, or inform the court before any such decision.

“We would think about it if a request is received from the US about Dr Shakil Afridi,” the petitioner Muhammad Khurshid Khan quoted the prime minister’s advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz in the writ petition.

In the past, Khurshid Khan said that in violation of the country’s law the incumbent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had gone to Saudi Arabia directly from the prison. He recalled that former President General (R) Pervez Musharraf had gone overseas despite the fact that various cases were pending against him in the courts and now he was flouting the rule of law from abroad.

He pointed out that the rulers in the past had given benefit of Diyat law meant for Pakistani citizens to American national Raymond Davis in a case of murder of two Pakistanis and handed him over to the US.

The petitioner said that once again the rulers under pressure might hand over Dr Shakil Afridi to the US.

Meawhile, an appeal of Dr Shakil Afridi against his conviction is pending before the Fata Tribunal.