Lawyer for doctor in Bin Laden search flees Pakistan

Colleagues say lawyer received death threats for defending Shakil Afridi, who helped CIA find al-Qaida leader

The main lawyer for a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden has fled Pakistan after receiving death threats from militants, his colleagues has said.

The lawyer had represented Shakil Afridi since his arrest following the killing of Bin Laden in a US raid in Abbottabad in May 2011. The doctor ran a vaccination programme for the CIA to collect DNA to verify Bin Laden's presence at a compound in the city.

An assistant and a colleague in Peshawar said the lawyer, Samiullah Afridi, who is not related to his client, had travelled to Dubai. "Samiullah Afridi before leaving for Dubai told me that he has received death threats from militants," Afridi's assistant said. The assistant and the colleague said Afridi had told them he was leaving the country to save his life. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.

The doctor's brother Jamil Afridi said the lawyer had not informed him about the departure. He said the family had a panel of attorneys and would have to choose another lead attorney if it was confirmed.

Pakistani officials were outraged by the Bin Laden operation, which led to international suspicion that they had been harbouring al-Qaida's founder. In their eyes Afridi was a traitor who had collaborated with a foreign spy agency in an illegal operation on Pakistani soil.

But the doctor, who is being held in a prison pending retrial on a separate allegation, was never charged by Pakistan for helping the CIA, and US officials have demanded his release. The case has caused friction between Pakistan and the US, complicating a relationship that Washington views as vital for fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida and negotiating an end to the war in Afghanistan.

The doctor was convicted of "conspiring against the state" in May 2012 and sentenced to 33 years in prison. His conviction was related to allegations that he gave money and provided medical treatment to Islamist militants in Khyber. The doctor's family and the militants denied the allegations.

His conviction was later overturned by a judicial official. Now the doctor faces a murder charge that stems from a complaint over a teenage boy who died after the doctor performed surgery on him for appendicitis in 2006. The complaint, filed by the boy's mother, Nasib Gula, alleges that Afridi was not authorised to operate on her son because he was a physician, not a surgeon.