The United States should make more of an effort to obtain the release of an imprisoned Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA get Osama bin Laden, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told Newsmax Wednesday.
Dr. Shakil Afridi was head of health services in Pakistan's Khyber district. He oversaw a vaccine program that is believed to have helped U.S. intelligence services confirm bin Laden was living at the Abbottabad compound where he was eventually killed.
Pakistani authorities considered Afridi a traitor for his role in helping the U.S. They arrested him in May of 2011 and sentenced him to 33 years in prison without a trial.
Although the U.S. has been withholding aid money from Pakistan, McCaul said it should apply additional pressure. He said a prisoner swap between U.S. and Pakistan might be an option.
McCaul told "On the Record" that Afridi is "not an American, so, you know, the Levinson Act ... does not work in this case." The Levinson Act addresses the wrongful detainment of U.S. nationals abroad.
"Perhaps that's an avenue we could take, to make an exception for him," he said.
McCaul noted that WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was detained in Russia, was swapped for a Russian arms dealer.
"Griner, a basketball star, is traded. She had a vape pipe. That was her offense. And the merchant of death from Russia gets swapped," he said.
"So it seems to me, this guy is a patriot — an American hero who turned over bin Laden to our intelligence community for an execution. And he should be rewarded for that."
McCaul went on to compare the situation to the disastrous U.S. withdrawal of Afghanistan.
"Just like Afghanistan. Who's going to trust us? If your allies no longer trust you, you've got a problem. And if your enemies no longer fear you, then you have a very dangerous world," he said.
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Kate McManus ✉
Kate McManus is a New Jersey-based Newsmax writer who's spent more than two decades as a journalist.
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