Pakistan is clearly not our ally.

Sentence Cut for Bin Laden Figure - NYTimes.com

" ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani official reduced by 10 years the 33-year sentence of a Pakistani medical doctor who had helped the C.I.A. track down Osama bin Laden, local news media reported Saturday.

The doctor, Shakil Afridi, was arrested in 2011 after members of an American Navy SEAL unit killed Bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound. The raid caused the tumultuous relationship between United States and Pakistan to plummet to a new low as Pakistan called it a violation of the country’s territorial sovereignty.

In 2012, Dr. Afridi was convicted of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison. On Saturday, the judicial official, Munir Azam, the commissioner of Frontier Crimes Regulation in Peshawar, reduced Dr. Afridi’s sentence to 23 years. Dr. Afridi earned the wrath of Pakistani officials after he helped pin down Bin Laden’s location under the cover of a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad. But the charges against him in a tribal court accused him of aiding a banned militant group. Dr. Afridi denies the charges.

Last August, Pakistani officials set aside the earlier conviction and ordered a retrial. But the decision on Saturday took the lawyers and family of Dr. Afridi by surprise. Samiullah Afridi, a lawyer for Dr. Afridi, was quoted by local news media outlets as saying that his client wanted a retrial and not a review of the earlier case. “We are not satisfied with the decision,” the lawyer was quoted as saying.

The arrest of Dr. Afridi was a point of contention between Pakistan and the United States, and Americans officials have repeatedly urged the Pakistanis to release him. While the Americans portray Dr. Afridi as a hero, Pakistani officials and much of the local media have portrayed him as a traitor."