Pakistan charges doctor who helped find bin Laden with murder

Authorities in northwest Pakistan have charged the doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden with murder and fraud, officials and a defence lawyer said Saturday. "A murder and fraud case was registered against Shakeel Afridi this week after a tribal woman accused him of killing her son," a senior government official in Peshawar told AFP. Afridi's lawyer Samiullah Afridi confirmed the charges. Naseeb Gula, from the northwestern tribal district of Khyber, accused Afridi of killing her son Sulaiman Afridi in 2007. She said the doctor operated on her son three times for appendicitis, but that he died after the operation. The woman also accused Afridi of fraud, saying he was not authorised to operate on her son because he was not a surgeon. The senior official, who requested anonymity, confirmed to AFP that Afridi would also face fraud charges. Afridi was arrested after US troops killed Al Qaeda chief bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad in May 2011. Islamabad branded the raid a violation of sovereignty, and Pakistan's relations with the US fell to an all-time low.