Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | August 06, 2008
AN American-educated female Pakistani neuroscientist was charged in a New York court today after being extradited to the US for allegedly shooting at American soldiers while in detention in Afghanistan.
The case of Aafia Siddiqui has caused outrage in Pakistan, where her family angrily insisted that the 36-year-old was innocent and accused US forces of secretly holding her for the last five years at Bagram air base, a detention centre operated by the US Army in Afghanistan.
Ms Siddiqui, who has three children, disappeared from the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi in 2003 and featured on a list of US suspects linked to al-Qa'ida the following year.
She was extradited to the US overnight and did not enter a plea at Manhattan federal court. A bail hearing is set for Monday.
The furore over Ms Siddiqui came as Pakistani officials, stung by US complaints they have done little to stem rising Islamic militancy in tribal regions, accused the CIA of failing to "take out" al-Qa'ida-linked militant leader Baitullah Mehsud with Hellfire drone missiles when it had the chance.
Ms Siddiqui, who was educated at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was arrested on July 17 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, said US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Michael Garcia.
At the time of her arrest, she was carrying inside her handbag documents on how to make explosives and descriptions of various US landmarks, including in New York City, Mr Garcia said, citing the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.
When US military officials arrived at her detention facility to pick her up one day after her arrest, Ms Siddiqui rushed out from behind curtains and opened fire with an assault rifle that had been left on the floor, Mr Garcia said.
Ms Siddiqui fired two rounds without hitting anybody and was shot in the chest by a US officer who returned fire.
She is charged with one count of attempting to kill US officers and employees, and one count of assaulting US officers and employees, with a maximum 20 years in prison on each charge.
"What a mockery that after five years in detention Aafia is suddenly discovered in Afghanistan," her younger sister Fauzia Siddiqui told a news conference in Karachi yesterday.
"I decided to break my silence to say that one is innocent until proven guilty. My sister is innocent and has never been actually accused of any crime," said her sister, a medical doctor.
"Aafia was tortured for five years until one day US authorities announce that they have found her in Afghanistan, which shows how they abused their power and tortured an innocent woman without committing any crime."
Ms Siddiqui's sudden transportation to the US followed a habeas corpus petition filed in the Pakistan High Court last week over her alleged illegal detention.
Named as respondents in the petition were, among others, President Pervez Musharraf, as well as the legal affairs attache at the US embassy in Islamabad.
The filing of the petition was seen as holding serious potential embarrassment for both the Pakistan and US governments, with barrister Javed Iqbal Jaffrey alleging that American agents had kidnapped Ms Siddiqui and her children in Karachi. He also accused Pakistani authorities of being involved with the American agents in the kidnapping of Ms Siddiqui and moving her to Bagram, near Kabul.
Mr Jaffrey, in his petition, also expressed fear that American troops might have killed Ms Siddiqui and her children in detention.
He asked the Islamabad High Court to enquire from the respondents whether they had killed Ms Siddiqui or she was still detained at Bagram with her children. The family has no news of Ms Siddiqui's three American-born children.
Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, has lodged a request with US authorities for consular access to Ms Siddiqui.
Her case has become a cause celebre in Pakistan in recent months, with relatives and rights groups repeatedly expressing fears that she was being held at Bagram.
Reports said she had become known as the "grey lady of Bagram" after being held for years in solitary confinement. A fellow former detainee, Moazzam Begg, claimed she had "lost her sanity and cries all the time".
Fauzia Siddiqui also said the family had received death threats warning them not to talk about the case.
"Our lives are in serious danger," she said.
"We are receiving threats through phone calls and SMS not to discuss or pursue Aafia's case. I do not know who are the people threatening us."
US officials have previously accused Ms Siddiqui of links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida network.
In 2002, she was tasked by al-Qa'ida militant Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, the nephew of self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to prepare paperwork for the entry to the US of another extremist, according to a profile of al-Baluchi issued by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Both Ali and Mohammed are detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facing charges of plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Source: The Australian
Posts
