Amer Aziz

Prof. Dr. Amer Aziz is an orthopedic surgeon who is based in Lahore.[1][2][3][4] He earned his medical degree in the United Kingdom and according to The Washington Times, is a British citizen.[1][5] In 2002 the Associated Press profiled Aziz when it became known that he had treated Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders. The Associated Press described Aziz as "a prominent Pakistani physician". The Los Angeles Times called him "Pakistan's foremost orthopedic surgeon".[2]

The New York Post asserted that Aziz became radicalized when he traveled to Kosovo during its war of independence from Yugoslavia to treat wounded Muslim Yugoslavians.[4]

Aziz was seized by American security officials on 21 October 2002, held and interrogated by officers of both the FBI and the CIA.[1]

Aziz refuted the speculation that bin Laden was suffering from kidney disease, or some other serious disease.[1] He asserted that the two times he examined bin Laden, in 1999 and November 2001.

Aziz had been paying visits to Afghanistan, to treat mujahideen since the war to oust Afghanistan's Soviet invaders in 1989.[1]

In 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that Aziz traveled to perform emergency medical work when remote Pakistan controlled Kashmir, was hit by an earthquake that killed 86,000.[2] They reported on tensions with US forces who were also providing emergency service, due to his known past association with Islamists. His field hospital was in a camp run by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa—a group associated with Lashkar e taiba.

On 25 April 2011, WikiLeaks published formerly secret documents signed by the Guantanamo camp commandants. One brief recorded that one captive, Ayman Batarfi, was a young doctor who had interned under Aziz in 2000.[6] The document quotes Aziz, and records several suspicions American intelligence officials held about Aziz.

American officials suspected Aziz had been involved in Al-Qaeda's plans to develop biological and chemical weapons. A floppy drive with a defensive approach to biological weapons was written for a clandestine government organization as a professor of microbiology at Rawalpindi Medical College (professor Abbas Hayat Baloch). During his interrogation at an unknown place, he was able to convince the interrogators that as far as botulinum toxin is concerned, any biology schoolboy can pick up a swollen can from the shelf of any store and culture anaerobically for botulinum toxin. Professor Abbas Hayat Baloch categorically disagreed that he will not render his services as microbiologist for any warfare or unethical purposes. His concern was, the human pathogens, their control and treatment can save human lives. Meanwhile, Professor Dr. Amir Aziz was able to convince his American and local interrogators that actually, in the name of jihad, he had been dating his girlfriend in the green motels in Nathiagali, confirmed by Americans by bringing in the hotel staff to confirm identity. Finally, with the intervention of their friends and General Musharraf himself too, they were spared their trip to Guantanamo.