PESHAWAR, Sept 11: Prison authorities in Peshawar have vehemently denied that the convicted physician alleged to have helped the CIA to knock out Osama bin Laden gave an interview to an American news channel.

“No such interview has taken place,” Khalid Abbas, Inspector General of Prison in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told Dawn on Tuesday. His comments were sought on a purported interview given by Dr Shakil Afridi to Fox News.

A tribal court has sentenced Dr Afridi to 33 years in prison on charges of helping and colluding with militants. But no formal charges were brought against him on his alleged spying for the CIA despite recommendations made by a judicial commission.

Fox News claimed that its correspondent had conducted the interview in the Peshawar Centre Jail.

In the purported interview, which was also carried by a section of the media in Pakistan, Dr Afridi spoke of an underground detention facility at the ISI’s headquarters in Aabpara, Islamabad, and how the intelligence agency’s officers deceived their American counterparts.

Khalid Abbas, who also oversees the Peshawar Central Jail, said two local journalists had visited him a couple of months ago and wanted to interview Dr Afridi. But, he said, he had turned down their request on the grounds that no-one was allowed to meet the under-trial prisoner.

He said that on the orders of the government, Afridi’s elder brother Jamil Khan Afridi, two sisters and his two lawyers had been allowed to meet him on August 28 in the office of the prison’s deputy superintendent after a thorough search at the main gate.

“There is no question of any one meeting the prisoner without prior approval of the government,” he said, adding that there was no question of allowing either a video or audio recorder inside the prison and that all visitors were body-searched to ensure that no gadgets went through.

Khalid Abbas challenged Fox News to come out with any audio or video material it had of Afridi’s purported interview.

An official said Afridi was being kept in a secluded lock-up and no-one was allowed to meet him inside the prison. Only Afridi’s immediate family members and lawyers were allowed to meet him once a month and records of their visits were diligently kept, he said.