Pakistan: US should respect decision to imprison doctor who helped CIA

“I think as far as the case of Mr. Afridi is concerned, it was in accordance with Pakistani laws and by the Pakistani courts, and we need to respect each other's legal processes,” Moazzam Ali Khan told reporters.

Pakistani authorities on Wednesday sentenced a Afridi to 33 years in jail on charges of treason, officials said, a move that drew angry condemnation from US officials already at odds with Islamabad.

Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign, in which he collected DNA samples, that is believed to have helped the American intelligence agency track down bin Laden in a Pakistani town.

The al-Qaeda chieftain was killed in a unilateral US special forces raid in the town of Abbottabad in May last year. Afridi is the first person to be sentenced by Pakistani authorities in the bin Laden case.

The sentence was handed down under tribal laws, which unlike the national penal code do not carry the death penalty for treason. US officials and lawmakers said Afridi deserved only praise.

“We continue to see no basis for these charges, for him being held, for any of it,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters, declining specific comment on the 33-year sentence given to Afridi.

A senior US official with knowledge of counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda in Pakistan said the doctor's actions “helped save Pakistani and American lives.”