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By NBC News and news services: Updated at 8:18 a.m. ET

Pakistan jails doctor who helped CIA find Osama bin Laden



PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A Pakistani doctor accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden was convicted of
high treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison on Wednesday.

Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the American intelligence agency to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's
presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad, where he was killed last May by U.S. commandos.

Afridi was also ordered to pay a fine of about $3,500, Nasir Khan, a government official in the Khyber tribal area,
told The Associated Press. If he doesn't pay, he will spend another three and half years in prison, Khan said.

His imprisonment is likely to anger ally Washington at a sensitive time, with both sides engaged in difficult talks
over re-opening NATO supply routes to U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials had hoped Pakistan, a recipient of billions of dollars in American aid, would release Afridi. He was
detained after the unilateral operation which killed bin Laden and strained ties with Islamabad.

In January, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a television interview that Afridi and his team had been key in
finding bin Laden, describing him as helpful and insisting the doctor had not committed treason or harmed Pakistan.

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