Pak lawyers to appeal against treason sentence of Osama operation doctor

London, May 25 (ANI): Pakistani lawyers have said they would appeal against the conviction for treason handed to Dr Shakeel Afridi, the physician recruited by the CIA to track down Osama Bin Laden.

"We have requested the Khyber administration to provide us with the documents related to the trial and conviction, and once we get them, we will file an appeal in the office of the commissioner of the Frontier Crimes Regulation," The Telegraph quoted lawyer Samiullah Afridi, as saying.

Afridi was given a 33-year sentence for helping the Central Investigative Agency locate the Al-Qaeda chief by collecting DNA. He ran a fake vaccination programme designed to collect DNA from Bin Laden's family from the compound in the town of Abbottabad, where he was shot dead in a U.S. raid in May 2011.

The lawyer, general secretary of the Peace Movement, a civil society group against militancy, said his organisation does not believe Afridi committed any crime, but had instead worked "to help eliminate terrorism".

Afridi's sentencing has exasperated the U.S., leading the Senate Appropriations Committee to vote to cut U.S. aid to Pakistan by a symbolic 33 million dollars-1 million dollars for each year of jail time. (ANI)