South Asia

Pakistan: Ex-lawyer of doctor who helped CIA in Laden hunt killed

Pakistan: Ex-lawyer of doctor who helped CIA in Laden hunt killed

| | 18 Mar 2015, 05:18 am
Peshawar, Mar 18: A former lawyer of the doctor, who helped the CIA to search al Oaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has been shot dead in Pakistan's Peshawar city, media reports said on Wednesday.

 Unidentified gunmen attacked the lawyer, Samiullah Afridi, in his car near the city of Peshawar on Tuesday, CNN reported quoting Mian Saeed, a police superintendent in Peshawar.

 
According to reports, the militant group Jundallah, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. 
 
The lawyer had represented Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who was convicted of treason in 2012 by a Pakistani tribal court and is now serving a 23-year prison sentence.
 
The doctor reportedly helped the CIA set up a fake vaccination campaign in an attempt to collect DNA samples from relatives of Laden.
 
The DNA samples helped the CIA verify Laden\'s presence in a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
 
Laden was killed in a U.S. raid on the Abbottabad compound in May 2011.