Trump promised to free a Pakistani surgeon who helped find bin Laden. He's still in prison.
By Rick Noack May 2 at 5:00 AM
Before being elected, President Trump made a promise he said would take “two minutes” to fulfill: Facilitating the release of Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden in 2011 and was subsequently arrested by Pakistani authorities.
But 103 days into Trump's administration — and on the sixth anniversary of the raid in which bin Laden was killed in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad — the Pakistani surgeon is still being held on vague charges. His case adds to concerns that the administration is not willing to back foreigners who have risked their lives for the United States during conflicts abroad. Such worries have mounted since Trump temporarily banned Iraqi translators who worked alongside American soldiers from entering the United States shortly after his inauguration.
In the case of Afridi, Trump had initially committed to help. “I would tell them, 'Let him out,' and I'm sure they would let him out,” said Trump, speaking to Fox News one year ago. But the then-presidential candidate soon learned the hard way that Pakistan had no intention of resolving the dispute quickly.
The covert 2011 U.S. raid in Abbottabad — conducted without the prior knowledge of Pakistani authorities — left officials there deeply embarrassed. Days after bin Laden's death, Afridi was captured and accused of having run a fake vaccination program for the CIA to obtain DNA samples that could prove the al-Qaeda leader was in the city.
The program was reportedly launched under the assumption that bin Laden lived in the Abbottabad compound together with other family members. Whether Afridi actually managed to collect samples from bin Laden's family remains unclear.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/02/trump-promised-to-free-a-pakistani-surgeon-who-helped-find-bin-laden-hes-still-in-prison-and-theres-no-end-in-sight/?utm_term=.e22aa65f026e
