A U.S. senator announced Tuesday he would introduce a bill stripping Pakistan of all foreign aid unless the doctor imprisoned for helping the CIA track Usama bin Laden is released. The Obama administration, meanwhile, appeared unwilling to budge from its talking points on the issue, despite an impassioned plea for U.S. intervention from Dr. Shakil Afridi’s family.
“The blame has been placed on my brother because of America,” Shakil’s brother, Jamil, told Fox News during an interview in Pakistan. “We should get justice and protection.”
Jamil Afridi claimed his brother had been tortured by Pakistani authorities.
In Washington, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would introduce a pair of bills next week to address Afridi’s plight. One would strip Pakistan, which received $2.1 billion from the U.S. for the current fiscal year, of all foreign aid until Afridi’s 33-year sentence is overturned and he’s allowed to leave the country; the bill other would grant Afridi U.S. citizenship.
The measures would go beyond the vote by a Senate panel last week to strip Pakistan of $33 million in aid.
“Pakistan must understand that they are choosing the wrong side. They accuse Dr. Afridi of working against Pakistan, but he was simply helping the U.S. capture the head of Al Qaeda. Surely Pakistan is not linking their interests with those of an international terrorist organization,” Paul said in a statement. “Foreign aid has been an abysmal failure precisely for this reason — we give the aid to governments who then turn and work against our national interest. That must end.”
Administration officials have made a similar case, saying repeatedly that Afridi was working against Al Qaeda, not the Pakistani government.
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