Summary US lawmakers heavily pressured the Pakistani leadership for release of Dr. Shakil Afridi.
(Web Desk) - Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has assured U.S. authorities that his government will reconsider the case of Dr. Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the CIA pinpoint Osama Bin Laden, a US new channel reported.
Fox News reported that PM Nawaz held private meeting with congressional representatives and a non-government individual during a closed-door official House of Representatives event in Washington.
During meeting, Nawaz Sharif committed to task his top law officials with reviewing the prosecution process for Dr. Shakil Afridi.
Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., together with Robert Lorsch of the Free Afridi Campaign heavily pressured the Pakistani leadership about releasing the doctor and allowing him a life in the United States.
"My message to them was: What they do with Dr. Afridi is how Pakistan will be judged as a democracy by the rest of the world, " Lorsch told Fox News in an interview.
The tight-knit gathering, which included Pakistan s national security adviser Sartaj Aziz and finance minister Ishaq Dar, had not been previously announced to the somewhat surprised Pakistani delegation. The meeting lasted around 25 minutes in a side-room immediately prior to dinner hosted by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on last Tuesday night.
"This was first time that the leadership in Pakistan realized the importance of Dr Afridi not as a political bargaining tool but as a symbol of how freedom-loving American people regard Pakistan," Lorsch said.
Rep. Royce raised the question of a prime ministerial pardon or amnesty for Afridi, who has appealed to the American public to help secure his freedom.
But Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pointed out that the doctor was awaiting a retrial after his conviction was overturned on a technicality and he couldn t pardon him unless he was reconvicted.
Dr. Shakil Afridi, who was arrested immediately after the May 2, 2011 operation by US commandos that killed Osama, was convicted for treason over alleged ties to militant group Lashkar-e-Islam.
Meanwhile, the doctor has sought a fresh probe into his conviction in the treason case and a tribunal in federally administered tribal areas will hear arguments from his legal counsel on October 30 to determine whether the case merits fresh probe.
