PESHAWAR - The commissioner of Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) Saturday reserved judgment in Dr Shakil Afridi case and the decision is expected to be announced on March 15 next.
In the court of Commissioner FCR Capt (Retd) Munir Azam, Defence and prosecution counsels completed their arguments in the case of Dr Shakil Afridi for having links with a banned outfit also assisting it financially. The hearing of the case was held inside the Central Prison Peshawar.
Iqbal Durrani appeared as a prosecution while Samiullah Afridi and Qamar Nadeen appeared in defence. They completed arguments and it is expected the decision would be announced on March 15 next.
Afridi’s lawyers appealed against their client’s conviction and requested the court to declare the judgment null and void. Furthermore, it was also said in the appeal that Afridi should be given a chance and be heard by a jirga under the FCR law.
After hearing the arguments, the commission reserved its judgement, which could be announced in a month’s time. It is worth to mention here that Dr Shakil Afridi had helped the CIA by running a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad a month before the US forces raid on a compound that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.
He was sentenced on May 23, 2012 to 33 years in prison and fined Rs320,000 on charges of colluding with Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) and its chief Mangal Bagh. However, his sentenced was overturned in August 2013 and a retrial was ordered.