US cuts Pak aid for convicting doctor who helped track Osama
25 May 2012
Outraged by Pakistan convicting and imprisoning the doctor who enabled the CIA track Osama bin Laden, US senators yesterday voted to cut aid to Islamabad by $33 million - a million for each year in the doctor's sentence.
Senator Richard Durbin said the action was arbitrary but the hope was that Pakistan would realise the US was serious after the unanimous 30-0 vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Durbin, who is the Senate's number two Democrat said it was outrageous that Pakistanis would say a man who helped find Osama bin Laden was a traitor.
The amendment was offered by senators Lindsey Graham and Patrick Leahy of the Republican and Democratic parties. An appropriations subcommittee, earlier this week, cut aid to Islamabad warning there would be more to come if Pakistan did not reopen supply routes for Nato soldiers in neighboring Afghanistan.
Dr Shakil Afridi, was sentenced to 33 years in jail on Wednesday on charges of treason and was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign, in which he collected DNA samples, which helped the American intelligence agency track down bin Laden in a Pakistani town.
US special forces killed bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad a year ago in a raid. The action has severely hit ties between Islamabad and Washington and there have been growing calls in the US Congress to cut off some or all of US aid since then.
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