After the world’s most-wanted man spent nine years in the country, had at least two children born in government hospitals and lived near the nation’s top military academy, Pakistan finally has punished someone.

The man who helped find Osama bin Laden.

Dr. Shakil Afridi was tried for treason under an archaic tribal justice system for running a fake vaccination program that helped gather information for U.S. intelligence. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison.

The treatment of the man who helped bring the terrorist leader behind 9/11 to justice is nothing short of appalling.

In Washington, a U.S. Senate committee quickly voted to cut $33 million from aid to Pakistan. It was a symbolic gesture, $1 million for each year of his sentence, but one lawmakers hope shows their outrage. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized Afridi’s sentence. As Clinton observed, “taking down” bin Laden “was clearly in Pakistan’s interests as well as ours and the rest of the world.”

Overturn conviction

Pakistani lawyers are planning to appeal Afridi’s ridiculous conviction. It should be overturned, and the United States should push hard for his freedom.

While Pakistani officials were insisting they had no idea where bin Laden was, U.S. intelligence located him in the military town of Abbottabad.

Rather than apologize, or at least acknowledge its failure, Pakistan prosecuted the doctor who helped find a mass murderer.

The sentencing of Afridi comes amid a particularly low point in U.S.-Pakistan relations.

For the past six months Pakistani leaders, angered by a U.S. drone attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last year, have closed off NATO’s supply corridor from Pakistan’s coast to the Afghanistan border. Those tensions have led to a reduction in U.S. aid, even before the recent Senate action.

NATO invited Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to the alliance’s recent summit in Chicago as a goodwill gesture, but President Barack Obama also made clear U.S. unhappiness, keeping Zardari at a distance during the event. At this point, NATO cargo trucks and fuel tankers are still prevented from using the Pakistan route.

Double game

Pakistan’s intelligence service has long played a double game, pledging support for U.S. goals even as it tolerates radicals and terrorists who cross into neighboring Afghanistan and promote upheaval.

In urging the aid cut, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., got it exactly right.

Calling Pakistan “a schizophrenic ally,” he said: “We need Pakistan, Pakistan needs us, but we don’t need Pakistan double-dealing and not seeing the justice in bringing Osama bin Laden to an end.”

— Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald