Authorities in Pakistan have denied rumors that a doctor who helped the US Central Intelligence Agency find and kill al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in 2011 will be released from prison. Dr. Shakil Afridi was arrested in 2011, shortly after bin Laden's death in a CIA operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. In the weeks following the CIA raid, it emerged that a team of local doctors and nurses had helped the US intelligence agency confirm bin Laden's presence at the complex. The team of about 20 health workers participated in a fake vaccination scheme conducted in Abbottabad, the real purpose of which was to collect DNA samples from residents of the compound where the CIA believed bin Laden was hiding.
Pakistani authorities fired 17 health workers who participated in the CIA program and arrested its boss, Dr. Afridi. Oddly, Dr. Afridi was arrested for having links with an Islamist group operating in the region known as Lashkar-e-Islam. He then faced charges of alleged medical negligence, which, according to the indictment, resulted in the death of one of his patients. He is currently serving a 33-year prison sentence in the city of Peshawar, on the northwestern border of Pakistan. Since his arrest, the United States has put pressure on Pakistan to release Dr. Afridi, and the Pakistani media often publish articles on alleged secret attempts by the CIA to free the jailed doctor. Last week, Dr. Afridi was flown by helicopter from Peshawar to a prison near the village of Adiala, located near the border with the Indian region of Kashmir. The move, which took place under a massive security framework, sparked media rumors that the alleged CIA agent was about to be released and transported to America.
But on Thursday, Muhammad Faisal, a spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejected intense media speculation that Dr. Afridi was about to be released. He also denied that Islamabad was attempting to exchange Afridi with Pakistani citizens residing in the United States, including Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence in the United States for killing a US soldier in Afghanistan. Additionally, Faisal described "nonsense" reports of an allegedly failed attempt by the CIA to organize a breakout in Peshawar in order to free Doctor Afridi.