Congressmen on the powerful Senate appropriations committee voted to cut $1 million from the $800 million annual budget for each of the 33 years that Dr Shakeel Afridi has been told he must serve in jail for working with a foreign intelligence agency.
Dr Afridi set up a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad in an attempt to obtain blood samples from bin Laden's family, as the CIA tried to confirm the al-Qaeda chief's presence in a nearby villa.
Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina who helped push through the measure, said: "We don't need a Pakistan that is just double dealing." Senators including John McCain, the former Republican presidential nominee, have described Dr Afridi as "courageous, heroic, and patriotic," and demanded that he be pardoned. » | Jon Swaine, Washington and Rob Crilly in Rawalpindi | Thursday, May 24, 2012
