A doctor who helped the CIA hunt down Osama bin Laden was convicted Wednesday of conspiring against the state and sentenced to 33 years in prison, adding new strains to an already deeply troubled relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan.

U.S. officials had urged Pakistan to release the doctor, who ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify the al-Qaida leader's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed him in May 2011 in a unilateral raid.

The lengthy sentence for Dr. Shakil Afridi will be taken as another sign of Pakistan's defiance of American wishes. It could give more fuel to critics in the United States that Pakistan — which has yet to arrest anyone for helping shelter bin Laden — should no longer be treated as an ally.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who as CIA director oversaw the U.S. raid on bin Laden, said in an interview aired Wednesday on the "CBS Evening News" that Afridi was "very helpful" with the operation.