Original Posted By indon
Alfridi: Merananya Dokter yang Membantu Melacak bin Laden


Bagaimana Pakistan memenjarakan pria yang membantu melacak dalang serang 10 november?

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PESHAWAR - Shakil Afridi telah mendekam di penjara selama bertahun-tahun sejak 2011, yakni ketika dokter Pakistan menggunakan penipuan vaksinasi untuk mengidentifikasi rumah Osama Bin Laden.
Dia membantu Angkatan Laut AS yang berhasil melacak dan membunuh pemimpin Al-Qaeda tersebut.

Orang Amerika mungkin bertanya-tanya bagaimana Pakistan bisa memenjarakan seorang pria yang membantu melacak dalang serangan 11 September.
Orang Pakistan cenderung mengajukan pertanyaan yang berbeda: bagaimana mungkin Amerika Serikat mengkhianati kepercayaannya dan merendahkan kedaulatannya dengan serangan rahasia malam hari yang mempermalukan militer dan badan intelijennya?

"Kisah Shakil Afridi adalah metafora yang sempurna untuk hubungan AS-Pakistan.
Hal itu adalah sebuah jalinan ketidakpercayaan dan miskomunikasi yang mengancam upaya kunci melawan terorisme, “ kata Michael Kugelman, wakil direktur program Asia di Woodrow Wilson Center di Washington.

AS percaya bahwa dukungan keuangannya memberi hak kepada Pakistan dalam upayanya untuk mengalahkan Taliban. Dan, sebagai kandidat, Donald Trump pernah berjanji untuk membebaskan Afridi.
Kepada Fox News pada bulan April 2016 Trump akan mengeluarkannya dari penjara dalam "dua menit” karena kami memberikan banyak bantuan ke Pakistan. Tapi Pakistan marah atas apa yang dilihatnya sebagai campur tangan AS dalam urusannya.

Mohammed Amir Rana, direktur Institut Studi Perdamaian Pakistan di Islamabad, mengatakan bahwa defisit kepercayaan antara kedua negara adalah sebuah cerita lama yang tidak akan ditulis ulang sampai Pakistan dan AS merevisi harapan mereka satu sama lain agar mengenali keamanan mereka yang berbeda.
Hal itu adanya keprihatinan dan rencana strategi perang Afghanistan untuk membunuh dan berbicara dengan Taliban.
"Shakil Afridi adalah bagian dari teka-teki yang lebih besar," katanya.

Afridi belum melihat pengacaranya sejak 2012. Istri dan anak-anaknya adalah satu-satunya pengunjungnya.
Selama dua tahun itu arsipnya hilang dan menunda permohonan pengadilan yang masih belum berjalan. “Pengadilan sekarang mengatakan bahwa jaksa penuntut tidak ada, “ kata pengacaranya, Qamar Nadeem Afridi, kepada The Associated Press.

"Semua orang takut untuk bahkan membicarakannya dan untuk menyebutkan namanya. Ini bukan tanpa alasan,” kata Nadeem, yang juga sepupu Afridi.

Di kantor Nadeem, angin masuk melalui jendela yang tertutup dan hancur oleh peluru. Di jendela lain, pita bening menutupi lubang peluru. Keduaanya merupakan lubang dari insiden penembakan beberapa tahun yang lalu dimana tidak ada tersangka yang diberi nama.
“Pengacara Afridi lainnya ditembak mati di luar rumah Peshawar dan para deputi penjara Peshawar telah menganjurkan nama Afridi untuk ditembak mati,” kata Nadeem.

Afridi menggunakan program vaksinasi hepatitis palsu untuk mencoba mendapatkan sampel DNA dari keluarga Bin Laden sebagai alat untuk menentukan lokasinya.
Tapi dia belum dituntut sehubungan dengan operasi terhadap Bin Laden.

“Di bawah hukum kesukuan telah menuduh bahwa dia membantu dan memfasilitasi militan di wilayah suku Khyber di dekatnya.
Bahkan Taliban mencemooh tuduhan yang diajukan untuk menggunakan sistem kesukuan Pakistan, yang memungkinkan pengadilan tertutup, tidak meminta terdakwa untuk hadir di pengadilan, dan membatasi jumlah banding, “ kata Nadeem.

Jika didakwa dengan pengkhianatan — pihak yang berwenang Pakistan mengatakan bahwa komitmennya - Afridi memiliki hak untuk mendapatkan dengar pendapat publik dan banyak banding sampai ke Mahkamah Agung, di mana rincian serangan Bin Laden dapat dibiarkan kosong.
“Hal ini sesuatu yang tidak dimiliki oleh sipil atau militer perusahaan yang menginginkannya,” kata pengacaranya.

Afridi menghabiskan hari-harinya sendirian, terisolasi dari populasi penjara umum yang penuh dengan militan yang telah bersumpah untuk membunuhnya karena perannya dalam menemukan Bin Laden.
Meski begitu, pengacaranya Nadeem mengatakan bahwa pihak berwenang memperlakukan Afridi dengan baik dan dia dalam keadaan sehat. Ini menurut mereka yang telah melihatnya.

Tidak ada indikasi apakah Asisten Menteri Luar Negeri AS Alice Wells membawa kasus Afridi dalam pertemuan baru-baru ini di Pakistan.
Namun dalam sebuah pernyataan, Departemen Luar Negeri AS mengatakan kepada AP bahwa Afridi belum dilupakan.

"Kami yakin Dr Afridi telah dipenjara secara tidak adil. Dan ono dengan jelas mengkomunikasikan posisi kami ke Pakistan mengenai kasus Dr Afridi, baik di depan umum maupun di tempat umum," katanya.

Dulu, Pakistan telah memberi tuntutan pembebasan Afia Siddiqui, seorang wanita Pakistan yang berada dalam tahanan AS yang dihukum.
Dia sempat ditahan karena dituduh berusaha membunuh seorang tentara Amerika di Afghanistan.

"Ke Amerika, dia (Siddiqui) adalah seorang teroris," kata Kugelman. "Kepada Pakistan, dia benar-benar dipenjarakan tanpa bersalah,'' katanya.

Sumber : saudigazette.com/AP

Original Posted By bule
Hero doctor who risked his life tracking down Osama bin Laden for the U.S. remains locked in a Pakistani jail after seven years without a trial, despite American promises to get him freed

Shakil Afridi played a key part in helping the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden

The Pakistani doctor was sent to Bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad to offer hepatitis vaccines in order to obtain DNA to identify the people living there

Not long after, President Obama signed off on the special ops mission that would end in Bin Laden's assassination

After that mission, Afridi was arrested and has spent the last seven years in prison awaiting a trial that doesn't seem to be coming

Experts say Afridi has been caught in the middle of America and Pakistan's worsening relationship

President Trump vowed to get Afridi released, but appears not to have made any headway on the cause



Shakil Afridi has languished in jail for years - since 2011, when the Pakistani doctor used a vaccination scam in an attempt to identify Osama bin Laden's home, aiding U.S. Navy Seals who tracked and killed the al-Qaida leader.

Americans might wonder how Pakistan could imprison a man who helped track down the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Pakistanis are apt to ask a different question: how could the United States betray its trust and cheapen its sovereignty with a secret nighttime raid that shamed the military and its intelligence agencies?

'The Shakil Afridi saga is the perfect metaphor for U.S-Pakistan relations' - a growing tangle of mistrust and miscommunication that threatens to jeopardize key efforts against terrorism, said Michael Kugelman, Asia program deputy director at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

The U.S. believes its financial support entitles it to Pakistan's backing in its efforts to defeat the Taliban - as a candidate, Donald Trump pledged to free Afridi, telling Fox News in April 2016 he would get him out of prison in 'two minutes. ... Because we give a lot of aid to Pakistan.' But Pakistan is resentful of what it sees as U.S. interference in its affairs.

Mohammed Amir Rana, director of the independent Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies in Islamabad, said the trust deficit between the two countries is an old story that won't be rewritten until Pakistan and the U.S. revise their expectations of each other, recognize their divergent security concerns and plot an Afghan war strategy, other than the current one which is to both kill and talk to the Taliban.

'Shakil Afridi (is) part of the larger puzzle,' he said.

Afridi hasn't seen his lawyer since 2012 and his wife and children are his only visitors. For two years his file 'disappeared,' delaying a court appeal that still hasn't proceeded. The courts now say a prosecutor is unavailable, his lawyer, Qamar Nadeem Afridi, told The Associated Press.

'Everyone is afraid to even talk about him, to mention his name,' and not without reason, said Nadeem, who is also Afridi's cousin.

In Nadeem's office, the wind whistles through a clumsily covered window shattered by a bullet. On another window, clear tape covers a second bullet hole, both from a shooting incident several years ago in which no suspects have been named. Another of Afridi's lawyers was gunned down outside his Peshawar home and a Peshawar jail deputy superintendent, who had advocated on Afridi's behalf, was shot and killed, said Nadeem.

Afridi used a fake hepatitis vaccination program to try to get DNA samples from bin Laden's family as a means of pinpointing his location. But he has not been charged in connection with the bin Laden operation.

He was accused under tribal law alleging he aided and facilitated militants in the nearby Khyber tribal region, said Nadeem. Even the Taliban scoffed at the charge that was filed to make use of Pakistan's antiquated tribal system, which allows closed courts, does not require the defendant to be present in court, and limits the number of appeals, he said.

If charged with treason - which Pakistani authorities say he committed - Afridi would have the right to public hearings and numerous appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, where the details of the bin Laden raid could be laid bare, something neither the civilian nor military establishments want, his lawyer said.

Tensions have grown between Pakistan and the U.S. since Trump's New Year's Day tweet in which he accused Pakistan of taking $33billion in aid and giving only 'deceit and lies' in return while harboring Afghan insurgents who attack American soldiers in neighboring Afghanistan. Days later, the U.S. suspended military aid to Pakistan, which could amount to $2billion.

Infuriated by Trump's tweet, Pakistan accused Washington of making it a scapegoat for its failure to bring peace to Afghanistan.

The Wilson Center's Kugelman advocated a 'scaled-down relationship' between the two countries. He said both sides need to agree to disagree on some issues and instead focus on those areas where they can agree to cooperate against terror groups that both regard as threats, including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.

Pakistan and the Taliban sanctuaries it provides are a big part of the insurgents' success in Afghanistan, but it's only one of many factors, Kugelman said.

'It's foolish to suggest that if the Pakistani sanctuaries were eliminated, the insurgency would magically go away and the U.S. would be able to prevail in Afghanistan,' he said. 'The Taliban has persevered because the U.S. still struggles to fight wars against non-state actors, and because the Afghan government has remained a weak and corrupt entity that has failed to convince a critical mass of Afghans that it's a better alternative to the Taliban.'

Afridi spends his days alone, isolated from a general prison population filled with militants who have vowed to kill him for his role in locating bin Laden, said Nadeem. Still, Nadeem said authorities are treating Afridi well and he is in good health, according to those who have seen him.

There was a no indication whether U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells brought Afridi's case up in recent meetings in Pakistan. But in a statement, the U.S. State Department told the AP that Afridi has not been forgotten.

'We believe Dr. Afridi has been unjustly imprisoned and have clearly communicated our position to Pakistan on Dr. Afridi's case, both in public and in private,' it said.

In the past, Pakistan has compared Afridi's dilemma with demands for the release of Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who is in U.S. custody convicted of trying to kill an American soldier in Afghanistan.

'To America, she (Siddiqui) is a terrorist,' said Kugelman. 'To Pakistan, she is a wrongfully imprisoned innocent.'