Shakil Afridi: Pakistan Taliban vows to cut bin Laden doctor “into pieces”

July 31, 2016

By Jill Langlois

This photograph shows Pakistani surgeon Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden. The court judgment from his sentencing showed on May 30, 2012, that he was tried for treason for links to a militant group, not for helping the CIA.

Pakistan's Taliban vowed Thursday to kill Shakil Afridi, the jailed Pakistani doctor accused of helping the CIA search for Osama bin Laden.

"We will cut him into pieces when we find him," Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told CNN by phone. "He spied for the US to hunt down our hero Osama bin Laden."

"This court judgment and punishment is all a drama, staged to hand him over to America," Ehsan also said, according to the New York Post.

Another Pakistani militant group was accused of having links to Afridi earlier Thursday, but denied the association and said they would "chew him alive" if they found him, reported the Post.

Afridi was sentenced to 33 years in prison last week and is being held in Peshawar, according to the International Business Times. Initial reports said he had been arrested for helping the CIA locate bin Laden in Pakistan by setting up a fake vaccination campaign, but Pakistan said he has been sentenced for having close ties to militant group Lashkar-e-Islam.

Even with the change in Afridi's reason for being arrested, he remains at the top of the Pakistani Taliban's hit list, said CNN.

On Wednesday, the doctor's brother told CNN he feared for Afridi's safety and requested the United States help get him out of prison.

"These allegations are false. They're baseless," said Jamil Afridi. "My brother didn't do anything against Pakistan. If he helped the US, it was for the benefit of Pakistan. The American government should help us in any way it can."

According to the Times, some officials in Pakistan think Afridi's trial was faked. The US has, in turn, cut $33 million in aid to Pakistan, $1 million for each year of his prison sentence.