US lawmaker proposes exchanging high profile prisoner for Pakistani doctor who helped track down Bin Laden

By Islamuddin Sajid

ISLAMABAD (AA) - A US lawmaker has proposed that his government exchange two high-profile prisoners.

The first is a Pakistani national, Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in Texas for the attempted murder of a US soldier in Afghanistan.

The second is Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA run a fake vaccination campaign to track down Al-Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden. In 2012, he was sentenced to 33 years in prison in Pakistan for links to a banned militant group and not for helping the CIA. The sentence was later reduced to 10 years.

Last week, during a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Brad Sherman called Afridi a man who risked his life to help the US get rid of Bin Laden.

"Here was a man who had killed thousands of Americans on American soil. What would our image be if we had not gotten them? How many terrorist attacks would have inspired? How many would have he actually planned," he questioned.

Sherman called Afridi the 24th team member of the US team who killed Bin Laden in 2011 in Abbottabad, a picturesque city in Pakistan's northwest.

"No man was left behind until you realize there was a 24th man, Dr. Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who risked his life to help us get the worst terrorist in the world. He remains behind bars. He doesn't have an American family or American fans really to put pressure on the State Department to get him out," he said.

Responding to the Congressman, State Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Horst said the US government was concerned about Afridi as he is innocent.

"I can't answer your question on that now. But what I can promise you is to look into see what kind of creative solutions we might do to bring [Afridi]," she said when Sherman asked her if the US would exchange Siddiqui for Afridi.

When Sherman asked her if the State Department is willing to get Afridi out, Horst said: "Of course, as you know, we're very concerned about Dr. Afridi. He is innocent."

Siddiqui, who did her PhD from Brandeis University, had gone missing in Pakistan in 2004 along with her three minor children before she was discovered in a US military base in Bagram, Afghanistan in 2008.

She was accused of attacking a US soldier during interrogation -- an account dismissed by herself and her family.

In 2010, she was sentenced to prison by a US court.

Last month, she was allowed by US authorities to meet her sister Fauzia Siddiqui at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, after almost 20 years.