ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have shifted Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA kill Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, from a jail in Peshawar apparently over security concerns, his lawyer Qamar Nadeem said on Saturday.
“I can confirm 95 percent that Afridi has been moved to a prison in Punjab,” Nadeem told Arab News, adding that a tribunal will hear his client’s review petition on May 31.
Afridi’s brother Jamil told Arab News that the family were not told what the security reasons were behind the move from the jail in Peshawar. He said the jail is easily accessible for family members, but the one in Punjab is not.
The inspector general for prisons in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Shahid Ullah, told Arab News that Afridi was moved on Friday, but refused to say why.
The KP government’s adviser on prisons, Malik Qasim Khattak, said: “It was our longstanding demand to shift Dr. Shakil from Peshawar.” He added that Afridi is a high-profile case, and Peshawar prison is not appropriate for him.
Afridi was arrested in May 2011 after US Special Forces killed bin Laden in a raid on a compound in Abbottabad.
He was sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason, but the sentence was reduced by 10 years after an appeal.
Afridi was working in Abbottabad hospital, and had allegedly used a fake polio vaccination campaign to confirm bin Laden’s presence. But authorities cited Afridi’s alleged links with a banned militant group for his punishment.
He will complete seven years in jail next month. His appeal against his sentence is scheduled to be heard on May 31.
Afridi’s lawyer rebuffed the authorities’ reported claim about security concerns, saying: “Peshawar is more secure than jails in Punjab as it’s located near several high-security buildings and the Peshawar military corps.”
Afridi’s arrest has been a major irritant in US-Pakistani relations, as Islamabad has rejected repeated American calls to free the convict, who is considered a hero in the US but a traitor by many in Pakistan.
Jailed Pakistani doctor who helped CIA kill bin Laden moved over ‘security concerns’ — Lawyer
Jailed Pakistani doctor who helped CIA kill bin Laden moved over ‘security concerns’ — Lawyer
- Shakil Afridi has been languishing in prison for almost eight years after his fake vaccination program helped US agents track and kill the Al-Qaeda leader
- Top prison official in KP says Afridi was moved by intelligence officials to the safer place due to security reasons late Thursday
Storms spark travel mayhem and power cuts in northern Europe
- Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers
- In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region
CHERBOURG, France: Gale-force winds and storms barrelled through northern Europe on Friday, disrupting air and rail travel and cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures.
Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers, with air travel disrupted across Europe from the Czech Republic to Moscow.
Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England.
All trains were canceled in Cornwall on Friday.
Some 57,000 homes in the UK remained without electricity, according to the National Grid energy provider, after Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight.
More than 250 schools remained closed across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.
In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said.
Overnight, gusts of up to 216 kilometers per hour (134 miles per hour) were registered in France’s northwestern Manche region, authorities said.
The winds felled trees with at least one crashing on residential buildings in France’s Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said.
Gusts of up to 160 kph lashed England and Wales with the Met Office forecasting agency warning of “very large waves” bringing “dangerous conditions to coastal areas.”
It also issued an amber snow warning in Wales, central England and parts of northern England, predicting snow of up to 30 centimeters (11 inches) in some areas.
More than 10 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe.
The latest deaths were reported by Turkish media, where five people were killed.
While two were killed in separate accidents involving dislodged roof tiles, a Syrian man died when a wall fell on him, a construction worker was swept into the Aegean Sea and a pensioner fell off a roof.
- Schools out -
Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions.
Giant waves crashed over harbor walls across France’s far northwest overnight, and as the storm moved eastwards it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports including Dieppe.
Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by Storm Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services canceled.
Some 600 schools were closed in Moldova until next Monday and around 1,000 homes were without electricity in Romania.
Floodwaters were meanwhile receding in parts of the Balkans on Friday after heavy snowfall and torrential downpours earlier in the week triggered hundreds of evacuations across several countries and killed at least two people.
In Albania, one of the hardest-hit in the region, Prime Minister Edi Rama said authorities were beginning to count the cost of flooding after hundreds of homes were inundated primarily in the south.
But weather warnings for icy conditions and snowfall remained in effect across most of the region, including Serbia, where parts of the west have been without power for days after a snowstorm knocked out power lines.
