1. The first allegation against Dr. Aafia: In 2003, US authorities alleged that she had links with Al-Qaeda. Throughout March 2003 flashes of the particulars of Dr. Aafia were telecast with her photo on American TV channels and radios painting her as a dangerous Al Qaeda person needed by the FBI for interrogation. At a news conference in May 2004, US Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that the FBI was looking for seven people with suspected ties to Al Qaeda. MIT graduate and former Boston resident Aafia Siddiqui was the only woman on the list.
2. The second allegation: The US authorities claimed on July 17, 2008, that Dr. Aafia was found to be in possession of some objectionable and dangerous material. According to US officials, Afghani police, acting on an anonymous tip that a foreign woman was planning terrorist activities, arrested Aafia Siddiqui outside the governor's compound in Ghazni, and discovered in her purse bottles of liquids, bomb making instructions, and a map of New York City landmarks.
3. The third allegation: International human rights group, prior to July 17, 2008, alleged that Dr. Aafia was being held in secret prison. She was unlawfully abducted and sexually tortured. This needed to be addressed before moving on. This allegation was against the US and Pakistani authorities.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui left her mother's house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, Sindh province, along with her three children, in a Metro-cab on March 30, 2003 to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport. The press reports claimed that Dr. Aafia had been picked-up by Pakistani intelligence agencies while on her way to the airport and initial reports suggested that she was handed over to the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). At the time of her arrest she was 30 years and the mother of Mirryam, 4 (daughter) and two sons Ahmad, 6 and Sulyman, six months. (Still there is no news about her daughter and son Sulyman.)
A few days later an American news channel, NBC, reported that Aafia had been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of facilitating money transfers for terror networks of Osama Bin Laden. A Monthly English magazine of Karachi in a special coverage on Dr. Aafia reported that one week after her disappearance, a plain clothed intelligence went to her mother's house and warned her, "We know that you are connected to higher-ups but do not make an issue out of your daughter's disappearance." According to the report the mother was threatened her with 'dire consequences' if she made a fuss.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, for about 10 years and did her PhD in genetics, returned to Pakistan in 2002. Having failed to get a suitable job, she again visited the US on a valid visa in February 2003 to search for a job and to submit an application to the US immigration authorities. She moved there freely and came back to Karachi by the end of February 2003 after renting a post office box in her name in Maryland for the receipt of her mail. It has been claimed by the FBI (Newsweek International, June 23, 2003, issue) that the box was hired for one Mr Majid Khan, an alleged member of Al Qaeda residing in Baltimore.
Throughout March 2003 flashes of the particulars of Dr. Aafia were telecast with her photo on American TV channels and radios painting her as a dangerous Al Qaeda person needed by the FBI for interrogation. On learning of the FBI campaign against her she went underground in Karachi and remained so till her kidnapping. The June 23, 2003, issue of Newsweek International was exclusively devoted to Al Qaeda. The core of the issue was an article "Al Qaeda's Network in America". The article has three photographs of so-called Al Qaeda members - Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Dr. Afia Siddiqui and Ali S. Al Marri of Qatar who has studied in the US like Dr. Siddiqui and had long since returned to his homeland. In this article, which has been authored by eight journalists who had access to FBI records, the only charge leveled against Dr. Aafia is that "she rented a post-office box to help a former resident of Baltimore named Majid Khan (alleged Al Qaeda suspect) to help establish his US identity. Dr. Aafia faded into limbo for more than a year, until summer 2004 when the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI announced that she was one of seven terrorists who were planning to disrupt the American presidential elections.
Dr. Aafia's plight was highlighted
by a British journalist and peace activist, Yvonne Ridley, who flew to Pakistan to address a press conference in Islamabad on July 7, 2008.
"Today I am crying out for help, not for myself but for a Pakistani woman
neither you nor I have ever met. She has been held in isolation by the
Americans in Afghanistan
and she needs help," Ridley told a crowded press conference.
Ridley first learnt about the woman while reading a book by Guantanamo ex-detainee Moazzam Begg. One of
the four Arabs who escaped from the infamous Bagram cell in July 2005 also told
a television channel that he had heard a woman's cries and screams in the
prison but never saw her.
Ridley called her the Grey Lady of Bagram because she was almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her. The woman is registered as Prisoner number 650 and the US officials can't deny the fact, Ridley said. "I demand that the US military free the Grey Lady immediately. We don't know her identity, we don't know her state of mind and we don't know the extent of the abuse or torture she has been subjected to."
On 24th July the Asian Human Rights Commission issued an Urgent Appeal in the case of the disappearance of a lady doctor. Amid public protests in Pakistan, on August 1, an FBI official visited the house of Dr. Aafia's brother in Houston to deliver the news that she is alive and in custody.
One week later she was produced in a New York court where even the Judge expressed surprise at the quick extradition of Dr. Aafia from Afghanistan to New York noting that in such a short period one could not extradite a person from Bronx (a New York Borough) to Manhattan.
4. The fourth allegation: The US authorities
alleged that she fired at some US
soldiers, etc. while she was being interrogated, after her alleged arrest. This
is the only allegation on which Aafia has been tried. In the pre-trial hearing on January
18 the prosecution admitted: Dr Aafia is not a member of al-Qaida. She has no
links to any terrorist organization.
The question is why the FBI chose to charge her only with firing at the US soldiers and
agents? Why she is not charged with links to Al Qaed? Why she is not charged
with planning attacks on targets in New
York? Remember, a map of New York land marks was found on her when
she was taken into custody in Ghazni, according to prosecution. We may find
answers to these questions in the post-9/11 trials of Muslims in the US. A number of
Muslims were arrested on terror suspicion but never charged with terrorism or
acquitted in terrorism charges. They were put on trial with flimsy charges of
immigration violation, tax evasion or some other charges which have nothing to
do with terrorism. Just two examples may suffice to prove my point:
Anwar Mahmood, a Pakistani immigrant, was picked up in October 2001 for taking photographs of an upstate New York reservoir. No terror-related charges were ever filed against him but investigators found him in minor violation of immigration law. After spending three years in jail, he was deported to Pakistan in August 2004 for violating immigration law.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
