US wants Dr Afridi released and safe

The United States has said that it wants Dr Shakil Afridi, who helped CIA trace Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, to be "released and safe".

A Pakistani doctor, 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.

She said that the prosecution and conviction of Dr. Afridi sends absolutely the wrong message, particularly with regard to United States's shared interest in taking down one of the world's most notorious terrorists.

"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.