Had helped CIA in catching Osama, got 23 years jail in Pakistan, now what new decision has the court given?

A single-member bench of the Peshawar High Court issued the order on Thursday on a writ petition filed by Afridi’s wife Imrana Shakeel. Exit Control List (ECL) is a list of people barred from leaving Pakistan for various legal reasons. Petitioner’s lawyer Arif Jan Afridi informed the court that his client has been arrested on charges of spying for the US and has been sentenced to 23 years imprisonment by various courts of Pakistan. Saying that the names of (Dr Afridi’s) wife and children have been put in the ECL list by the government and since then, they cannot go anywhere. The lawyer said that no crime has been proved against my client Imrana Shakeel. Nor has he been arrested yet. Imrana Shakeel and her children have been named in the ECL only on the basis of some reports.

The Deputy Attorney General told the court that their names have been placed in the ECL on the report of security agencies and said that since there is a caretaker government in the country at present, he does not have the power to remove the names. In his judgment, Justice Abdul Shakur said that security agencies have no right to put any name on the ECL. Justice Shakur said how can his name be included in the ECL when he has not committed any crime?

Afridi, in his 60s, was the top doctor in the Khyber tribal district and as head of health services he oversaw several US-funded vaccination programmes. He is accused of running a fake vaccination campaign in the Pakistani cantonment city of Abbottabad to help the CIA in capturing Osama. The al-Qaeda chief was killed in a covert US strike on May 2, 2011. Afridi was arrested from Peshawar the same year. Initially he was accused of organizing a fake vaccination campaign for the CIA to confirm the presence of Osama. He was given a 33-year sentence on multiple charges of anti-state activities, including supporting terrorist organizations. Later his sentence was reduced to 23 years.