US wants 'Osama Doctor' Afridi released and safe

The State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland was responding to questions on reports that Dr Afridi had gone on a hunger strike to protest against prison conditions as he serves a 33 year sentence at the Peshawar jail for aiding the militant organisation Lashkar-e-Islam, Nuland said that  the prosecution and conviction of Dr Afridi sends the wrong message, especially in light of the shared interest in taking down one of the world's most notorious terrorists.

Dr Afridi is accused of helping the CIA in tracing Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda terrorist, and  has been sentenced to 33 years of imprisonment.

 "We want to see him released and we want to see him safe," the State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters at her daily news conference yesterday.

 "We are worried about all of it because he should never have been locked up to begin with," Nuland said. Dr Afridi is said to be on a hunger strike in a Pakistani jail.

 "We've made our views well known, both to the Pakistanis and in public. We are now in the middle of a series of working
group meetings with the Pakistanis, so that could give us a chance to raise our concerns about the hunger strike and other
things, and we are doing that," Nuland said in response to a question.