You'd think helping find one of the world's most wanted terrorists and America's number one enemy would make you a hero. In Pakistan, those actions make you a treasonous criminal. 

Dr. Shakil  Afridi, a C.I.A. informant who set up a fake vaccination scheme to help track bin Laden and his family in Pakistan, was sentenced to 33 years in jail for treason today, reports Reuters .  

If Afridi's sentence is mind-boggling to you, it helps to understand that while the U.S. and most of the Al Qaeda-hating world saw the raid on the bin Laden complex in Pakistan as a heroic moment, the Pakistani government saw it as a blatant violation of their sovereignty and a black mark on the nation's integrity. As we have noted in the past, the Pakistani government has been cracking down on people like Afridi who assisted with that raid (and in this case a fake vaccination scheme too). Hence Afridi's 33-year sentence. 

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Alexander Abad-Santos