Pakistani jailed for helping CIA find bin Laden

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A Pakistani doctor accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden has been jailed for 33 years for treason, television channels and a local government official said.

The official said Shakil Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign believed to have helped the American intelligence agency track bin Laden in a Pakistani town, where he was killed in a US special forces raid last May.

The 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 US-led troops in Afghanistan.

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

In January, US 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.