A Pakistani lawyer under death threats for defending a doctor who helped CIA agents hunt al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead on Tuesday (March 17), police said, and two militant groups claimed responsibility.
Samiullah Afridi represented Dr Shakil Afridi, who was jailed in 2012 for 33 years for running a fake vaccination campaign believed to have helped the U.S. intelligence agency track down bin Laden. That sentence was overturned in 2013 and the doctor is now in jail awaiting a new trial.
Samiullah Afridi was shot dead on Tuesday as he was returning to his home in the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said. According to media, he had recently returned there from abroad after leaving Pakistan for his safety.
A hospital spokesman added that Samiullah Afridi was shot twice, in the abdomen and the neck.
“He took the case of Shakil Afridi but he quit it after receiving threats. It has been a year and a half since his he withdrew from this case. We are unable to understand why they are claiming responsibility for it (killing) and how Jundullah is saying why they killed him,” said Ayaz Khan, general secretary of Peshawar Bar Council.
Two Pakistan militant groups claimed responsibility for the laywer's death. Jundullah, a Taliban splinter group, said: “We killed him because he was defending Shakil, who is our enemy.”
A Taliban faction, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar (TTP-JA), later said it had shot him for representing Shakil Afridi.
U.S. officials have hailed Shakil Afridi as a hero for helping pinpoint bin Laden's location before a 2011 raid by U.S. special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed the al Qaeda leader after more than a decade of searching for him.
Samiullah Afridi stopped representing the doctor last year, saying he had become a target. “I have been receiving threats from various organizations, and because of those threats I even went to Dubai some time back,” he told Reuters TV.
“Some organizations do not want us to continue defending this case ... Not only is my life in danger, my family is also in danger. I have therefore decided to quit this case.”
Shakil Afridi's original sentence damaged ties between Pakistan and the United States that were already strained over the bin Laden raid. Angry U.S. senators withheld $33 million in aid from Pakistan in retaliation.
AP