Rohrabacher: Give Bin Laden informant citizenship
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) has introduced a bill in Congress that would grant citizenship to the Pakistani doctor who helped CIA agents track down and kill Osama Bin Laden last spring.
A special Pakistan government commission has recommended that Dr. Shakeel Afridi, chief surgeon at Jamrud Hospital in northwestern Khyber tribal agency, be charged with high treason for aiding in a foreign intelligence operation, according to the Daily Beast.
The charge carries with it a possible death penalty.
“It is shameful and unforgivable that our supposed allies in Pakistan have charged Dr. Afridi, who contributed to the operation that killed Bin Laden, with treason,” Rohrabacher said in a prepared statement. “The United States needs to stand with those who help us. We have not forgotten about Dr. Afridi.”
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has acknowledged that Afridi assisted in the CIA’s effort to track down Bin Laden, who was living in an Abbottabad compound not far from one of the country’s premier military academies.
Afridi used a neighborhood inoculation program as a ruse to get a DNA sample from the children inside, which the military believed would have matched Bin Laden’s.
Three weeks after Bin Laden’s killing was announced, Afridi was arrested by Pakistani authorities. His family has reportedly disappeared as well.
“By granting him American citizenship we will send a direct and powerful message to those in the Pakistani government and military who protected the mastermind of9/11for all those years and who are now seeking retribution on those who helped to bring Bin Laden to justice,” Rohrabacher said.
The congressman, who lives in Costa Mesa, introduced legislation last year that would stop billions in aid to Pakistan.
Twitter: @JosephSerna