A doctor who played a vital role in helping US intelligence officials locate Osama Bin Laden has been sentenced to a 33-year-jail sentence in Pakistan.

Dr Shakil Afridi has been found guilty of treason for his part in running a DNA collection scheme, which helped the CIA confirm the presence of Osama Bin Laden.

It was reported he entered the compound in Abbottabad in which Bin Laden was living through pretending to offer polio vaccinations.

After the presence of the al-Qaeda leader was confirmed through a DNA sample, US forces killed Bin Laden in May 2011, an offensive that has soured already strained relationships between Pakistan and America.

Pakistan was embarrassed that it had been unwittingly sheltering the terrorist leader, reports the BBC, who had denied all knowledge of Bin Laden's location. American intervention were also felt to have undermined Pakistani authority reports The Guardian.

Dr Afridi has been detained since January. He has also been ordered to pay $3,500 or face another three and half years behind bars.

US Defense secretary Leon Panetta told CBS television that Dr Afridi "was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan... for them to take this kind of action against somebody who was helping to go after terrorism, I just think is a real mistake on their part".