Dr Aafia Siddiqui–The Prisoner 650: February 2010

Dr Aafia’s appeal

By Rafia Zakaria
THE aftermath of Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s conviction nearly two weeks ago in a New York courtroom has seen several protests. On Feb 13, students from universities all over Islamabad congregated at Aapbara Chowk and demanded her release, while pointing out the silence of human rights groups.
A day earlier, Lahore’s Liberty Chowk saw students and faculty members of several educational institutions come together to protest against Dr Aafia’s continued detention. Many other protests have been witnessed since the verdict was announced.

While the facts of Dr Aafia’s case remain shrouded in secrecy, the transformation of her case from one of suspected terrorism to Pakistan’s cause célèbre is undeniable. No other female figure facing serious criminal charges has ever garnered so much public outpouring of support in Pakistan’s recent history.

More notable is the wide spectrum of groups supporting her cause. The recent protests have illustrated the breadth of her allure, driving groups as diverse as the Tanzeem-i-Jihad and students from elite schools to the streets of major urban areas. From women in burka on the streets of Karachi chanting “down with the US” to jeans-clad members of student action committees at Liberty Chowk, Aafia Siddiqui seems to have captured the collective heart of the Pakistani nation.

This ability to unite such a diverse group of Pakistanis behind her makes her appeal worthy of analysis. It is rare indeed for those frequenting elite private universities to have a platform in common with the burka-clad members of organisations such as the Tanzeem-i-Jihad.

While the human rights violations in her case are the obvious explanation for such unity among the Pakistani public it is not the only factor. Human rights violations are rampant in Pakistan but are routinely ignored and do not provoke much public outcry. Indeed, the alleged torturer of 12-year-old Shazia Masih who is believed to have died of violence inflicted on her was released on bail without generating much of an outcry. Thousands continue to languish in the country’s jails without being afforded hearings.

How then does Aafia Siddiqui’s case appeal to the public? If anything, she has flouted conventions dear to Pakistani culture. She is divorced from her first husband with whom she has children. She then went on to remarry. Ordinarily, this alone would be considered enough to render a woman morally suspect in the eyes of Islamist groups whose teachings and literature uphold dutiful wives and mothers.

Indeed, groups like the Jamaat-i-Islami and Tanzeem-i-Jihad would normally have problems with the idea of a young woman like Dr Aafia Siddiqui travelling all over the world, as she did, without being accompanied by a male relation or mahram. Also problematic would have been the fact that she attended a Jewish-funded educational institution and did not live with her family while completing her education.

As the emblem of Pakistani womanhood, one that is being venerated and defended around the country, Aafia Siddiqui’s unfettered popularity represents perhaps the emergence of a new kind of female rebel. While she may have lived the life of a liberated western woman, attending American universities, working routinely with men, the visible image she presents is quite useful in allowing her to evade criticism.

Wearing the niqab she refuses to remove, shouting anti-imperialist slogans and taunting the institutional justice of her American captors, Aafia Siddiqui is able to channel the voice of every downtrodden person who has been misjudged and mistreated by the US. In accepting the visible garb of an obedient Muslim woman she seems to have won the hearts and minds of those very men who may have been her most avid critics.

Ironically the most magnetic aspect of Dr Aafia’s appeal lies in the most harmful allegations levelled against her. Simply put, while it is entirely likely that the stories alleging that Dr Aafia grabbed an unattended assault rifle and shot at her American interrogator are untrue, the possibility of their being correct titillates every Pakistani wanting to defy the US.

Pakistan’s beleaguered sense of sovereignty — assaulted by repeated drone attacks and an unending series of conspiracy theories regarding the presence or absence of US troops on Pakistani soil — is instantly assuaged at the idea of a frail, helpless woman attacking a trained American law-enforcement official. Cumulatively, the explosive mix of appearing to be the obedient Muslim woman clad in niqab and a would-be assassin defying the US make Dr Aafia Siddiqui irresistible as a heroine and an icon.

Undoubtedly, Aafia Siddiqui is a rebel. Born to a middle-class family she chose a male-dominated career and earned a PhD degree in a field where women are severely unrepresented. She abandoned a conventional life as a mother taking her children to and from school and looking after her husband and home to marry someone who was known to be an Al Qaeda member. She was arrested, disappeared in extremely suspicious circumstances and resurfaced in Afghanistan, leading to several questions. Even more questions remain about her guilt or innocence but her elevation to the status of an icon bears deeper consideration by all diverse groups supporting her cause.

The most pressing of these questions is whether similar attention and unquestioning sympathy would have been afforded to a Pakistani woman who had similarly thwarted convention but was persecuted by Pakistani authorities rather than the American ones. There is much valour even in the dream of defying the US but should such defiance be the only mark of heroism in our society? Concern for human rights, due process and justice are venerated principles that apply universally and indeed unequivocally to Aafia Siddiqui’s case but they also do so to all other cases of justice denied which may not vindicate a country’s suffering pride but whose victims are equally tortured and helpless.

The Mystery of Dr Aafia Siddiqui

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A Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three is to stand trial in New York for attempted murder. But shadowy questions about her life remain – including her links to al-Qaida and her five 'lost' years

Declan Walsh

On a hot summer morning 18 months ago a team of four Americans – two FBI agents and two army officers – rolled into Ghazni, a dusty town 50 miles south of Kabul. They had come to interview two unusual prisoners: a woman in a burka and her 11-year-old son, arrested the day before.

Afghan police accused the mysterious pair of being suicide bombers. What interested the Americans, though, was what they were carrying: notes about a "mass casualty attack" in the US on targets including the Statue of Liberty and a collection of jars and bottles containing "chemical and gel substances".

At the town police station the Americans were directed into a room where, unknown to them, the woman was waiting behind a long yellow curtain. One soldier sat down, laying his M-4 rifle by his foot, next to the curtain. Moments later it twitched back. The woman was standing there, pointing the officer's gun at his head. A translator lunged at her, but too late. She fired twice, shouting "Get the fuck out of here!" and "Allahu Akbar!" Nobody was hit. As the translator wrestled with the woman, the second soldier drew his pistol and fired, hitting her in the abdomen. She went down, still kicking and shouting that she wanted "to kill Americans". Then she passed out.

Whether this extraordinary scene is fiction or reality will soon be decided thousands of miles from Ghazni in a Manhattan courtroom. The woman is Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three. The description of the shooting, in July 2008, comes from the prosecution case, which Siddiqui disputes. What isn't in doubt is that there was an incident, and that she was shot, after which she was helicoptered to Bagram air field where medics cut her open from breastplate to bellybutton, searching for bullets. Medical records show she barely survived. Seventeen days later, still recovering, she was bundled on to an FBI jet and flown to New York where she now faces seven counts of assault and attempted murder. If convicted, the maximum sentence is life in prison.

The prosecution is but the latest twist in one of the most intriguing episodes of America's "war on terror". At its heart is the MIT-educated Siddiqui, once declared the world's most wanted woman. In 2003 she mysteriously vanished for five years, during which time she was variously dubbed the "Mata Hari of al-Qaida" or the "Grey Lady of Bagram", an iconic victim of American brutality.

Yet only the narrow circumstances of her capture – did she open fire on the US soldier? – are at issue in the New York court case. Fragile-looking, and often clad in a dark robe and white headscarf, Siddiqui initially pleaded not guilty, insisting she never touched the soldier's gun. Her lawyers say the prosecution's dramatic version of the shooting is untrue. Now, after months of pre-trial hearings, she appears bent on scuppering the entire process.

During a typically stormy hearing last Thursday, Siddiqui interrupted the judge, rebuked her own lawyers and made strident appeals to the packed courthouse. "I am boycotting this trial," she declared. "I am innocent of all the charges and I can prove it, but I will not do it in this court." Previously she had tried to fire her lawyers due to their Jewish background (she once wrote to the court that Jews are "cruel, ungrateful, back-stabbing" people) and demanded to speak with President Obama for the purpose of "making peace" with the Taliban. This time, though, she was ejected from the courtroom for obstruction. "Take me out. I'm not coming back," she said defiantly.

The trial, due to start in January, is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. It is a tale of spies and militants, disappearance and deception, which has played out in the shadowlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan since 2001. In search of answers I criss-crossed Pakistan, tracking down Siddiqui's relatives, retired ministers, shadowy spy types and pamphleteers. The truth was maddeningly elusive. But it all started in Karachi, the sprawling port city on the Arabian Sea where Siddiqui was born 37 years ago.

Her parents were Pakistani strivers – middle-class folk with strong faith in Islam and education. Her father, Mohammad, was an English-trained doctor; her mother, Ismet, befriended the dictator General Zia ul-Haq. Aafia was a smart teenager, and in 1990 followed her older brother to the US. Impressive grades won her admission to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, later, Brandeis University, where she graduated in cognitive neuroscience. In 1995 she married a young Karachi doctor, Amjad Khan; a year later their first child, Ahmed, was born.

Siddiqui was also an impassioned Muslim activist. In Boston she campaigned for Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya; she was particularly affected by graphic videos of pregnant Bosnian women being killed. She wrote emails, held fundraisers and made forceful speeches at her local mosque. But the charities she worked with had sharp edges. The Nairobi branch of one, Mercy International Relief Agency, was linked to the 1998 US embassy bombings in east Africa; three other charities were later banned in the US for their links to al-Qaida.

The September 11 2001 attacks marked a turning point in Siddiqui's life. In May 2002 the FBI questioned her and her husband about some unusual internet purchases they had made: about $10,000 worth of night-vision goggles, body armour and 45 military-style books including The Anarchist's Arsenal. (Khan said he bought the equipment for hunting and camping expeditions.) Their marriage started to crumble. A few months later the couple returned to Pakistan and divorced that August, two weeks before the birth of their third child, Suleman.

On Christmas Day 2002 Siddiqui left her three children with her mother in Pakistan and returned to the US, ostensibly to apply for academic jobs. During the 10-day trip, however, Siddiqui did something controversial: she opened a post box in the name of Majid Khan, an alleged al-Qaida operative accused of plotting to blow up petrol stations in the Baltimore area. The post box, prosecutors later said, was to facilitate his entry into the US.

Six months after her divorce, she married Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, at a small ceremony near Karachi. Siddiqui's family denies the wedding took place, but it has been confirmed by Pakistani and US intelligence, al-Baluchi's relatives and, according to FBI interview reports recently filed in court, Siddiqui herself. At any rate, it was a short-lived honeymoon.

In March 2003 the FBI issued a global alert for Siddiqui and her ex-husband, Amjad Khan. Then, a few weeks later, she vanished. According to her family, she climbed into a taxi with her three children – six-year-old Ahmed, four-year-old Mariam and six-month old Suleman – and headed for Karachi airport. They never made it. (Khan, on the other hand, was interviewed by the FBI in Pakistan, and subsequently released.)

Initially it was presumed that Siddiqui had been picked up by Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) spy agency at the behest of the CIA. The theory seemed to be confirmed by American media reports that Siddiqui's name had been given up by Mohammed, the 9/11 instigator, who was captured three weeks earlier. (If so, Mohammed was probably speaking under duress – the CIA waterboarded him 183 times that month.)

There are several accounts of what happened next. According to the US government, Siddiqui was at large, plotting mayhem on behalf of Osama bin Laden. In May 2004 the US attorney general, John Ashcroft, listed her among the seven "most wanted" al-Qaida fugitives. "Armed and dangerous," he said, describing the Karachi woman as a terrorist "facilitator" who was willing to use her education against America. "Al-Qaida Mom" ran the headline in the New York Post.

But Siddiqui's family and supporters tell a different story. Instead of plotting attacks, they say, Siddiqui spent the missing five years at the dreaded Bagram detention centre, north of Kabul, where she suffered unspeakable horrors. Yvonne Ridley, the British journalist turned Muslim campaigner, insists she is the "Grey Lady of Bagram" – a ghostly female detainee who kept prisoners awake "with her haunting sobs and piercing screams". In 2005 male prisoners were so agitated by her plight, she says, that they went on hunger strike for six days.

For campaigners such as Ridley, Siddiqui has become emblematic of dark American practices such as abduction, rendition and torture. "Aafia has iconic status in the Muslim world. People are angry with American imperialism and domination," she told me.

But every major security agency of the US government – army, FBI, CIA – denies having held her. Last year the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, went even further. She stated that Siddiqui was not in US custody "at any time" prior to July 2008. Her language was unusually categoric.

To reconcile these accounts I flew to Siddiqui's hometown of Karachi. The family lives in a spacious house with bougainvillea-draped walls in Gulshan Iqbal, a smart middle-class neighbourhood. Inside I took breakfast with her sister, Fowzia, on a patio overlooking a toy-strewn garden.

As servants brought piles of paratha (fried bread), Fowzia produced photos of a smiling young woman whom she described as the victim of an international conspiracy. The US had been abusing her sister in Bagram, she said, then produced her for trial as part of a gruesome justice pageant. "As far as I'm concerned this trial [in New York] is just a great drama. They write the script as they go. I've stopped asking questions," she said resignedly.

But Fowzia, a Harvard-educated neurologist, was frustratingly short on hard information. She responded to questions about Aafia's whereabouts between 2003 and 2008 with cryptic cliches. "It's not that we don't know. It's that we don't want to know," she said. And she blamed reports of al-Qaida links on a malevolent American press. "Half of them work for the CIA," she said.

The odd thing, though, was that the person who might unlock the entire mystery was living in the same house. After being captured with his mother in Ghazni last year, 11-year-old Ahmed Siddiqui was flown back to Pakistan on orders from the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Since then he has been living with his aunt Fowzia. Yet she has forbidden him from speaking with the press – even with Yvonne Ridley – because, she told me, he was too traumatised.

"You tell him to do something but he just stands there, staring at the TV," she said, sighing heavily. But surely, I insisted, after 15 months at home the boy must have divulged some clue about the missing years?

Fowzia's tone hardened. "Ahmed's not allowed to speak to the press. That was part of the deal when they gave him to us," she said firmly.

"Who are they?" I asked.

She waved a finger in the air. "The network. Those who brought him here."

Moments later Fowzia excused herself. The interview was over. As she walked me to the gate, I was struck by another omission: Fowzia had barely mentioned Ahmed's 11-year-old sister, Mariam, or his seven-year-old brother, Suleman, who are still missing. Amid the hullabaloo about their imprisoned mother, Aafia's children seemed to be strangely forgotten.

That night I went to see Siddiqui's ex-husband, Amjad Khan. He ushered me through a deathly quiet house into an upstairs room where we sat cross-legged on the floor. He had a soft face under the curly beard that is worn by devout Muslims. I recounted what Fowzia told me. He sighed and shook his head. "It's all a smokescreen," he said. "She's trying to divert your attention."

The truth of the matter, he said, was that Siddiqui had never been sent to Bagram. Instead she spent the five years on the run, living clandestinely with her three children, under the watchful eye of Pakistani intelligence. He told me they shifted between Quetta in Baluchistan province, Iran and the Karachi house I had visited earlier that day. It was a striking explanation. When I asked for proof, he started at the beginning.

Their parents, who arranged the marriage, thought them a perfect match. The couple had a lot in common – education, wealth and a love for conservative Islam. They were married over the phone; soon after Khan moved to America. But his new wife was a more fiery character than he wished. "She was so pumped up about jihad," he said.

Six months into the marriage, Siddiqui demanded the newlyweds move to Bosnia. Khan refused, and grew annoyed at her devotion to activist causes. During a furious argument one night, he told me, he flung a milk bottle at his wife that split her lip.

After 9/11 Aafia insisted on returning to Pakistan, telling her husband that the US government was forcibly converting Muslim children to Christianity. Later that winter she pressed him to go on "jihad" to Afghanistan, where she had arranged for them to work in a hospital in Zabul province. Khan refused, sparking a vicious row. "She went hysterical, beating her hands on my chest, asking for divorce," he recalled.

After Siddiqui disappeared in March 2003, Khan started to worry for his children – he had never seen his youngest son, Suleman. But he was reassured that they were still in Pakistan through three sources. He hired people to watch her house and they reported her comings and goings. His family was also briefed by ISI officials who said they were following her movements, he said. (Khan named an ISI brigadier whom I later contacted; he declined to speak).

Most strikingly, Khan claimed to have seen his ex-wife with his own eyes. In April 2003, he said, the ISI asked him to identify his ex-wife as she got off a flight from Islamabad, accompanied by her son. Two years later he spotted her again in a Karachi traffic jam. But he never went public with the information. "I wanted to protect her, for the sake of my children," he said.

Khan's version of events has enraged his ex-wife's family. Fowzia has launched a 500m rupees (£360,000) defamation law suit, while regularly attacking him in the press as a wifebeater set on "destroying" her family. "Marrying him was Aafia's biggest mistake," she told me. Khan says it is a ploy to silence him in the media and take away his children.

Khan's explanation is bolstered by the one person who claims to have met the missing neuroscientist between 2003 and 2008 – her uncle, Shams ul-Hassan Faruqi. Back in Islamabad, I went to see him.

A sprightly old geologist, Faruqi works from a cramped office filled with coloured rocks and dusty computers. Over tea and biscuits he described a strange encounter with his niece in January 2008, six months before she was captured in Afghanistan.

It started, he said, when a white car carrying a burka-clad woman pulled up outside his gate. Beckoning him to approach, he recognised her by her voice. "Uncle, I am Aafia," he recalled her saying. But she refused to leave the car and insisted they move to the nearby Taj Mahal restaurant to talk. Amid whispers, her story tumbled out.

Siddiqui told him she had been in both Pakistani and American captivity since 2003, but was vague on the details. "I was in the cells but I don't know in which country, or which city. They kept shifting me," she said. Now she had been set free but remained under the thumb of intelligence officials based in Lahore. They had given her a mission: to infiltrate al-Qaida in Pakistan. But, Siddiqui told her uncle, she was afraid and wanted out. She begged him to smuggle her into Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban. "That was her main point," he recalled. "She said: 'I will be safe with the Taliban."

That night, Siddiqui slept at a nearby guesthouse, and stayed with her uncle the next day. But she refused to remove her burka. Faruqi said he caught a glimpse of her just once, while eating, and thought her nose had been altered. "I asked her, 'Who did plastic surgery on your face?' She said, 'nobody'."

On the third day, Siddiqui vanished again.

Amid the blizzard of allegations about Siddiqui, the most crucial voice is yet to be heard – her own. The trial, due to start in January, has suffered numerous delays. The longest was due to a six-month psychiatric evaluation triggered by defence claims that Siddiqui was "going crazy" – prone to crying fits and hallucinations involving flying infants, dark angels and a dog in her cell. "She's in total psychic pain," said her lawyer, Dawn Cardi, claiming that she was unfit to stand trial.

But at the Texas medical centre where the tests took place, Siddiqui refused to co-operate. "I can't hear you. I'm not listening," she told one doctor, sitting on the floor with her fingers in her ears. Others reported that she refused to speak with Jews, that she manipulated health workers and perceived herself to "be a martyr rather than a prisoner". Last July three of four experts determined she was malingering – faking a psychiatric illness to avoid an undesirable outcome. "She is an intelligent and at times manipulative woman who showed goal-directed and rational thinking," reported Dr Sally Johnson.

Judge Richard Berman ruled that Siddiqui "may have some mental health issues" but was competent to stand trial.

Back in Pakistan Siddiqui has become a cause celebre. Newspapers write unquestioningly about her "torture", parliament has passed resolutions, placard-waving demonstrators pound the streets and the government is spending $2m on a top-flight defence. High-profile supporters include the former cricketer Imran Khan and the Taliban leader Hakumullah Mehsud who has affectionately described Siddiqui as a "sister in Islam".

The unquestioning support is a product of public fury at US-orchestrated "disappearances", of which there have been hundreds in Pakistan, and deep scepticism about the American account of her capture. Few Pakistanis believe a frail 5ft 3in, 40kg woman could disarm an American soldier; fewer still think she would be carrying bomb booklets, chemicals and target lists.

But there are critics, too, albeit silent ones. A Musharraf-era minister with previous oversight of Siddiqui's case told me it was "full of bullshit and lies".

Two weeks ago the Obama administration introduced a fresh twist, when it announced that next year (or in 2011) five Guantanamo Bay detainees will be tried in the same New York courthouse, a few blocks from the World Trade Centre. One of them is Siddiqui's second husband, Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, who stands accused of financing the 9/11 attacks.

But while the Guantanamo detainees will be tried for their part in mass terrorism, Siddiqui's case focuses on a minor controversy – whether she fired a gun at a soldier in an Afghan police station. And so the big questions may not be probed: whether the ISI or CIA abducted Siddiqui in 2003, what she did afterwards, and where her two missing children are now. In fact the framing of the charges raises a new question: if Siddiqui was such a dangerous terrorist five years ago, why is she not being charged as one now? A senior Pakistani official, speaking on condition of strict anonymity, offered a tantalising explanation.

In the world of counter-espionage, he said, someone like Siddiqui is an invaluable asset. And so, he speculated, sometime over the last five years she may have been "flipped" – turned against militant sympathisers – by Pakistani or American intelligence. "It's a very murky world," he said.

"Maybe the Americans have no charges against her. Maybe they don't want to compromise their sources of information. Or maybe they don't want to put that person out in the world again. The thing is, you'll never really know."

A Brief Timeline of Aafia’s Case

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– March 18, 2003: the FBI issues an alert requesting information about Aafia;

– March 29: UPI reports that the FBI believes Aafia may be an Al Qaeda “fixer,” transferring money to support “terrorist” operations;

– March 30: Aafia disappears en route to the airport for a flight to Rawalpindi;

– April 3: CNN reports that Al Qaeda figure Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (arrested March 1) mentioned Aafia during interrogation; Pakistani authorities deny any knowledge of her whereabouts;

– April 4: the FBI denies that it captured and is detaining Aafia;

– May 26: John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller cite reports that Al Queda plans an attack on the US in the summer or fall; Aafia is named as an Al Qaeda “operative and facilitator” and is one of seven Al Qaeda members being sought;

– May 28, 2004: Pakistan’s Interior Ministry confirms that Aafia was turned over to US authorities in 2003 after it was unable to establish any links she may have had with Al Qaeda;

– A 2006 Amnesty International report includes Aafia as one of many of the “disappeared” in the “war on terror;”

– A 2007 Ghost Prisoner Human Rights Watch report said that Aafia “may have once been held” in secret CIA detention;

– A February 2008 Asian Human Rights Commission report said Aafia was brought to Karachi and severely tortured to secure her compliance as a government witness against Khalid Shiekh Mohammed;

– July 7, 2008: UK journalist Yvonne Ridley identifies Aafia as “Prisoner 650? at the US Bagram, Afghanistan torture-prison;

– July 11: US Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green denies that any women are being held at Bagram;

– July 31: the FBI tells Aafia’s brother that she’s in US custody;

– August 4: a DOJ press release says that Afghanistan National Police arrested Aafia in Ghazni on July 17 and that she was wounded the next day while trying to shoot US Army personnel;

– August 6: US Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis orders Aafia be held without bail; her court-appointed lawyer, Elizabeth Fink, says charges against her are “absurd;” a bail hearing was set for August 11 and another for August 18 to determine if she should be tried;

– August 12: the Washington Pakistani embassy formally requests that Aafia be repatriated to Pakistan;

– August 13: the US military in Afghanistan denies it ever held Aafia in detention and that an unnamed female prisoner was someone else;

– September 12: according to a report in MIT’s The Tech, court documents released today indicate that Aafia “was diagnosed with chronic depressive type psychosis;”

– September 23: Judge Richard Berman enters a “not guilty” plea on behalf of Aafia; she refuses to come to court because doing so requires she be strip-searched; he sets December 17 as the next hearing date to determine her fitness to stand trial; he also sets March 9, 2009 as a tentative trial date;

– September 29: World Net Daily reports that for the “first time since 9/11, counterterrorism field agents have been authorized to spy on young Muslim men and women – including American citizens – who have traveled to Pakistan without any specific evidence (suggesting) wrongdoing;”

– October 2: Aafia is moved to the Carswell Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, TX for psychiatric evaluation; in vain, her lawyer pleaded that she not be sent because she urgently needs medical treatment;

– October 6: Pakistani senators Mushahid Hussain Syed, Sadia Abbasi Mehmood, and SM Zafar met with Aafia; Faqir Saeed of the Pakistani embassy as well; she tells them of her ordeal – that she was abducted in 2003, given an injection, found herself in a cell, and was forced to sign papers and confess to things she didn’t do; her children’s lives were threatened and she was abused grievously;

– November 17: Judge Richard Berman indicates that a psychiatric evaluation indicates that Aafia is “not competent to proceed as a result of her mental disease, which renders her unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her;”

– December 17: the next scheduled date (in New York District Court) to determine if Aafia is fit to stand trial;

– March 9, 2009: the tentative date for Aafia’s trial to begin.

The US Bagram, Afghanistan Torture-Prison

After her abduction, Aafia disappeared into Bagram hell and was known only as “Prisoner 650.” Then later, by released prisoners, as the “Gray Lady of Bagram” because of her screams they heard for years.

At one time, Bagram (north of Kabul at the US air base) held twice as many prisoners as Guantanamo and likely still holds hundreds. They’re crammed into wire cages, routinely tortured, forced to sleep on floor mats, and have buckets for latrines, or at least did until recently. Many prisoners are held secretly, have been there for years, have no access to lawyers, or any knowledge of the allegations against them. Most, perhaps all, are innocent victims and guilty only of being Muslims at the wrong time in the wrong place.

What’s known about Bagram comes from released or transfered prisoners who got access to counsel. In early 2008, The New York Times also reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross filed a confidential complaint with US authorities charging that its detainees were held incommunicado for weeks or months in isolation cells and subjected to cruel treatment (torture) in violation of international law.

In February 2005, The London Guardian reported that a prisoner named Mustafa was blindfolded, handcuffed, gagged, and forced to bend down over a table by three US soldiers. They then “forcibly rammed a stick up my rectum….I could not stop screaming when this happened.”

Another case involved Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed Al Deemawi. For over a 40 days, he was threatened with dogs, stripped and photographed “in shameful and obscene positions,” placed in a cage with a hook and hanging rope, and hung on it blindfolded for two days. Both men were never charged and were later released.

Other prisoners were beaten, chained, hung from the ceiling by their wrists, and subjected to numerous other tortures and indignities – for months or years. In some cases so horrifically they died. Aafia and other women were (and still are) at Bagram and other US torture- prisons (including torture-ships at sea), according to British journalist Yvonne Ridley: “There are many Muslim women in the captivity of American forces and if (people remain) silent, (they’ll) lose their sisters forever.” Some are treated even worse than Aafia.

Ridley wrote about Bagram’s “Prisoner 650? and her ordeal of torture and repeatedly being raped for over four years. “The cries of (this) helpless woman echoed (with such torment) in the jail that (it) prompted prisoners to go on hunger strike.” Ridley called her a “gray lady (because) she (was) almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her. This would never happen to a Western woman.” It did to Aafia, other Muslim women as well, and their ordeal continues horrifically.

US and International Law on Prisoners of War and Enforced Disappearances

US and international law are clear and unequivocal on prisoner detentions and their treatment. America under George Bush defiles it, and, given the rogue team he’s assembled, the Obama administration (with or without Guantanamo) promises little or no change. These practices are grievous crimes of war and against humanity and should never be tolerated against anyone for any reason. Yet they persist.

The US War Crimes Act (1996) defines these offenses as grave breaches under the Geneva Conventions (1949) and violations of its Common Article 3. It states in part:

….”the following acts are prohibited at any time and in any place….:

– violence to life and person (including) murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

– ….humiliating and degrading treatment;”

– sentencing or executing detainees “without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees….recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples;” and

– assuring wounded and sick are (properly) cared for.

The US Army Field Manual 27-10 is also explicit on the rule of law. It incorporates the Nuremberg Principles prohibiting crimes against humanity, and specifically obligates soldiers to disobey illegal orders or be subject to prosecution under international law. Paragraph 498 states that any person, military or civilian, who commits a crime under international law bears responsibility and may be punished. Paragraph 499 defines a “war crime.” Paragraph 509 denies the defense of superior orders in the commission of a crime, and paragraph 510 denies the defense of an “act of state.”

Under Article VI of the Constitution (the supremacy clause), international law is part of domestic law, and US presidents take an oath under Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution….” Further, Article II, Section 3 requires the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully exercised.”

International human rights law also strictly prohibits secret detentions. Under Principle 6 of the (May 1989) UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions:

“Governments shall ensure that persons deprived of their liberty are (to be) held in officially recognised places of custody, and that accurate information on their custody and whereabouts, including transfers, is made promptly available to their relatives and lawyers or other persons of confidence.”

US and international laws leave no ambiguity on torture or its seriousness when practiced. The (1949) Third Geneva Convention’s Article 13 (on the Treatment of Prisoners of War) states:

Detainees “must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited….(these persons) must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation….”

Third Geneva also prohibits physical or mental torture, all other forms of coercion, collective punishment, corporal punishments, and any type of violence. These acts are “war crimes.” Various other US and international laws also prohibit them, yet they’re official US policy, so far with impunity.

In December 1992, the UN General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance. It states that:

“any act of enforced disappearance is an offence to human dignity.” It “places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families. It constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia (among other things), the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person, and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment….No state shall practice, permit or tolerate enforced disappearances” and must terminate any such acts “in any territory under its jurisdiction.” Such practices are crimes of war and against humanity.

In 2005, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHR&GJ, New York University School of Law) published a report titled: “Fate and Whereabouts Unknown: Detainees in the “War on Terror.” It presented “factual summaries of (28) individuals who may be in secret (US) detention sites” and included known information about Aafia at the time.

CHR&GJ said enforced disappearances happen “when individuals are deprived of their liberty by state agents and the state fails to provide information about their fate or whereabouts; through these actions, detainees are placed outside the protection of law.”

“Disappearances” include these practices:

– individuals (often unidentified) held in secret US-run or controlled “black sites;”

– individuals in foreign-based sites under US control or direction;

– individuals “extraordinarily renditioned” to “black” or other sites; and

– individuals held in conflict areas and not properly registered and/or identified, such as CIA “ghost prisoners” on US military facilities like at Bagram.

United States of America v. Aafia Siddiqui

On September 2, the Justice Department (DOJ) indicted Aafia “for attempting to kill United States Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges.” On September 4, she was arraigned before Judge Richard Berman in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Michael Garcia, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, stated (in a September 2 press release) that on July 18, 2008, “a team of United States servicemen and law enforcement officers, and others assisting them, attempted to interview Aafia Siddiqui in Ghazni, Afghanistan, where she had been detained by local police the day before….unbeknownst to the United States interview team, unsecured, behind a curtain — Siddiqui obtained one of the United States Army officer’s M-4 rifles and attempted to fire it, and did fire it, at another United States Army officer and other members of the United States interview team….

Siddiqui then assaulted one of the United States Army interpreters, as he attempted to obtain the M-4 rifle from her. Siddiqui subsequently assaulted one of the FBI agents and one of the United States Army officers, as they attempted to subdue her.”

Garcia said nothing about years of torture and rape at Bargram or that this frail, weakened, 110 pound woman was confronted by three US Army officers, two FBI agents, and two Army interpreters, yet inexplicably managed to assault three of them, get one of their rifles, open fire at close range, hit no one, and only she was severely wounded. As her attorney put it:

“Picture this woman who is very tiny (and extremely frail and weakened from her ordeal), and ask yourself how she engaged in armed conflict….with six (armed and well-trained) military men, how did this happen? And how did she get shot? I think you can answer that, can’t you (and question the absurdity of DOJ’s charges against her)?

Garcia outlined, but didn’t indict, on the above-listed allegations about specific “cells,” handwritten notes about a “mass casualty attack,” constructing “dirty bombs,” and using various devices and means to deliver them. It was also alleged that before 9/11 she travelled to Liberia where she was involved in illegal diamond trading to support Al Qaeda and then opened a Baltimore post office box for one of its members. None of these claims are credible or showed up in her indictment.

Count One

Attempted Murder of United States Nationals by obtaining a US Army Officer’s M-4 rifle and attempting to fire and firing it at him, two other US Interview Team members, and repeatedly stating her intent and desire to kill Americans.

Count Two

Attempted Murder of United States Officers and Employees in the same manner while they were engaged in and on account of the performance of their official duties.

Count Three

Armed Assault of United States Officers and Employees in the same manner.

Count Four

Discharge of A Firearm During (a) Crime of Violence as described above.

Count Five

Assault of United States Officers and Employees as described above.

Count Six

(Further charges of) Assault of United States Officers and Employees as described above.

Count Seven

(More charges of) Assault of United States Officers and Employees as described above.

Aafia’s Deteriorating Health

In response to British MP Lord Nazir’s letter on Aafia’s whereabouts, US authorities confirmed that she’s incarcerated at Carswell Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, TX (pursuant to an October 1, 2008 US District Court, NY judicial directive) where she’s undergoing psychiatric evaluation, but not getting desperately needed medical attention.

Nazir earlier raised questions about her detention and said “she (was) physically tortured and continuously raped by the officers at the (Bagram) prison” – for over four years. He now wants her immediately released and repatriated to Pakistan after it was learned she’s held on dubious charges plus all the horrific treatment she endured – yet is guilty of nothing.

Aafia is in deplorable condition and, according to Judge Berman, not in a correct state of mind to stand trial. On August 7, 2008, Iqbal Haider, Co-chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed concern about her. He called it shocking and of grave concern that pictures of her show a beat-up frail and helpless woman, the effects of years of torture, abuse, and continuous rape. There are dark circles under her eyes, a badly repaired broken nose, “made up” teeth and crumbled lips, and overall “a picture of a severely dehydrated, sick person almost as if on the death bed. It shows the inhumane brutality of an apparently civilised nation by the administration of a country which claims to be much civilised.”

According to HRCP and Aafia’s family, her physical condition is deplorable, and she badly needs immediate medical treatment outside the Carswell prison where it’s not given. “Her wound was oozing blood,” and her clothes were soaked in it. Earlier in custody, one of her kidneys was removed, yet her abdominal pain persists. She has large stitches down her torso from the surgery, negligently done, and may be suffering from internal bleeding. Her teeth were removed. Her nose was broken and improperly reset. Her gunshot wound was incompetently dressed, and her overall condition is dire and life-threatening.

This poor woman was savaged by a criminal state operating outside the law for political advantage. Her outrageous treatment continues. Her son, Ahmed (a US citizen), is being detained in Afghanistan, but the whereabouts of her other two children is unknown.

A Final Comment

Post-9/11, the Bush administration:

– declared permanent war without cause;

– ravaged Iraq and Afghanistan;

– incited and/or engaged in other direct and proxy wars;

– militarized the country;

– enacted repressive police state laws;

– trashed the rule of law;

– made human and civil rights a nonstarter;

– defiled every human dignity imaginable;

– institutionalized illegal spying and electoral theft;

– made torture official US policy;

– criminalized dissent;

– waged war on working Americans;

– engineered the largest ever wealth transfer to the rich;

– turned government into a crime syndicate;

– looted the national treasury;

– bankrupted the nation;

– criminally defrauded the public; and

– waged a global jihad against Islam.

Aafia is one of its most aggrieved. She’s been destroyed physically and emotionally. Her former being no longer exists. Her survival is in jeopardy, yet she remains incarcerated, has been indicted, will be tried, likely convicted, and may spend the rest of her life in prison. And for what? For her faith, devoutness, ethnicity, humble charity, all at the wrong time in America. The message to everyone is clear. We’re all Aafia Siddiquis.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11378

Post-9/11, the “war on terror” has been a jihad against Islam, the colonizers v. the colonized, or what Edward Said called “the familiar (America, Europe, us) and the strange (the Orient, East, them).” Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is one of its most tragic, aggrieved, and ravaged victims. Her ordeal continues horrifically.

Boston Magazine’s Katherine Oxment asked: “Who’s afraid of Aafia Siddiqui? She went to MIT and Brandeis, married a (physician, lived in Boston), cared for her children….raised money for charities….did other volunteer work, hosted play groups in her apartment, (is) deeply religious….distribute(d) Korans to inmates in area prisons,” and did nothing out of the ordinary. (She) “was a normal woman living a normal American life. Until the FBI called her a terrorist….a high-profile Al Qaeda operative,” but we’ve seen these charges before, and each time they were bogus. They’re egregiously so against Aafia – a woman guilty only of being Muslim at the wrong time in America or elsewhere if you’re on Washington’s target list.

Against her and others, no evidence exists so prosecutors invent it. Most (or key parts) is kept classified, unavailable to the defense, and trials are judicial equivalents of circuses. Witnesses are enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bought off to cooperate. Proceedings are carefully orchestrated. Due process is effectively denied, and juries are intimidated to convict the innocent for political advantage.

The dominant media cooperate. Using information from Washington Post writer, Douglas Farah, and other sources, writer Lindsey Worth of FMS, Inc. referred to “the mysterious Aafia Siddiqui….allegedly Al Qaeda’s only female leader” in connecting her to “the Al Queda diamond operation” in West Africa.

The Times Online calls Aafia “Al-Qaeda woman,” and for ABC News she’s “Mata Hari” in a lengthy report featuring unsubstantiated charges against her, including:

– possessing detailed radiological, chemical and biological information, including possessing a liter of cyanide and instructions for a “dirty bomb;”

– more documents for a mass casualty attack;

– a list of New York targets, including the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Wall Street, and the animal disease center on Plum Island;

– terrorist recruiting;

– possessing excerpts from “The Anarchist’s Arsenal;”

– “documents detailing US military assets;”

– methods of attack by reconnaissance drones, underwater bombs and gliders; and

– a thumb (or flash) drive packed with emails detailing “specific cells” and planned attacks to carry out.

According to the FBI, she is, or was when captured, a potential “treasure trove” of information on terrorist supporters, sympathizers or sleepers in America and overseas. CIA officer John Kiriakou said she’s “the most significant capture in five years,” and an unnamed counterterrorism official called her “a very dangerous person, no doubt about it.”

For Kiriakou, she’s a “radical” involved in planning “a wide variety of different operations (perhaps with WMDs),” including a “possible attempt on the life of the President.” Unnamed sources from three federal agencies accused her of an “ill conceived” and perhaps amateurish plot to “kill all living US presidents,” including Jimmy Carter by poisoning.

By marriage to his nephew, she’s also reputedly linked to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the “principal architect of the 9/11 attacks,” according to the 9/11 Commission. He reportedly “gave her up” after capture on March 1, 2003, and shortly thereafter she and her children disappeared.

The DOJ also connects her to Adnan El Shukrijumah, another suspected Al Qaeda member “involved in terrorist planning with senior Al Qaeda leaders overseas and across America,” according to John Ashcroft.

Aafia’s friends and family deny all charges. They call her an innocent victim of US persecution, and an especially egregious one for being ravaged in detention. One supporter (Abu Sabaya) said this about the woman he knew:

“I want you to come to know of the concern and dedication that this woman had for Islam as described by those who knew her – a dedication that was manifested by way of actions that were very simple and easy, yet seldom carried out by those who are able.

Those who knew Aafia recall that she was a very small, quiet, polite, and shy woman who was barely noticeable in a gathering. However….she would say what (was) needed” when necessary.

While at MIT, she organized drives to deliver Korans and other Islamic literature to Muslims in local prisons. She was also dedicated to Islam on campus where fellow students described her as soft-spoken, studious, religious, but not extremist or fundamentalist. She wrote three instructional guides on the faith. More as well on how to run a daw’ah table to provide religious information and training for da’iyas (callers to Islam). She wrote:

“Imagine our humble, but sincere daw’ah effort turning into a major daw’ah movement in this country! Just imagine it! And us, reaping the reward of everyone who accepts Islam throught this movement (for) years to come. Think and plan big. May Allah give this strength and sincerity to us so that our humble effort continues and expands until America becomes a Muslim land.”

Aafia taught local Muslim children on Sundays, but her greatest passion was to help oppressed Muslims worldwide. She spoke publicly, sent emails, gave slideshow presentations, and raised donations while a student and caring for three young children at home.

Because of her faith, activism, and passion for the oppressed, it’s little wonder she was targeted and why Assistant US Attorney Christopher LaVigne called her “a high security risk” despite no evidence to prove it.

Her Background and What Happened

Aafia is a Pakistani national with degrees from MIT and a doctorate in neurocognitive science from Brandeis. Despite false media reports, she’s not a microbiologist, geneticist or neurologist. Nor did her training provide expertise for WMD terrorism. As her lawyer, Elaine Whitfeld Sharp, explains:

The prosecution claimed “that Aafia was involved in biochemical warfare. She wasn’t taking brain cells and testing how they reacted to gases. But there’s all this news in the media about the changing face of Al Qaeda, the neurobiology scare, and now we’ve got this MIT graduate with a Brandeis Ph.D. who’s cooking up all these viruses.”

Boston Magazine writer Katherine Ozment explained what Aafia “was actually cooking up” – the simple concept that people learn by imitation. To study it, “she devised a computer program and used adult volunteers, who came to her office and watched various objects move randomly across the screen, then reproduced what they recalled. The point was to see how well they retained the information having seen in on the screen.”

Brandeis professor of cognitive science Paul DiZio laughed about how this could apply to terrorism. “I can’t see how it can be applied to anything. It’s not applied work. It didn’t have a medical aspect to it. And, as a computer expert, she was competent. But you know, calling her a mastermind or something (is ludicrous) – I never saw any evidence.”

She and her husband (a medical resident at the time at Brigham and Women’s Hospital) used their apartment for a 1999 nonprofit organization they began called the Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching. It had nothing to do with terrorism. According to the neighborhood Mosque’s Imam, Abdullah Faruuq: “What I know of (Aafia) is that she was living here in America, and her organization was for sharing Islamic information with the American people.”

Faruuq was impressed with her dedication. “Aafia was an American girl and a good sister.” She also wanted her husband to use his medical skills to help the less fortunate. Despite her devout faith, “there was nothing radical about Siddiqui. She just seemed like a very kind person.”

She’s also a mother of three, and a victim of extreme viciousness in detention. According to her mother, Ismet, she “left the family home in Gulshan-e-lqbal in a taxi on March 30 to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport.” Inside sources claim she was picked up by intelligence agents en route, and initial reports suggest then handed over to the FBI.

She was missing for over a year when the agency posted her photographs on its web site. Shortly afterward, a story was leaked about her involvement in the 2001 Liberian diamond trade with her as an Al Qaeda operative. The family’s attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, called the allegation a blessing in disguise because it placed Aafia in Liberia at a specific time when she can prove she was in Boston that week.

Aafia’s mother says that only days after her daughter’s disappearance a man on motorcycle came to her family home and warned her to say nothing about what happened if she wanted to see Aafia and her grandchildren again. She hasn’t since, and according to the Pakistani Urdu press, the family was picked up by local authorities and taken into custody. A government interior ministry spokesman and two unnamed US officials confirmed the report in the press. They then retracted their statements, but local Chicago NBC news (based on a Press Trust of India account) reported that Aafia was being interrogated by US intelligence officials.

At the time, the FBI website stated: “Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this individual.” The agency knew full well what happened – that Aafia was in secret detention, that her horrific ordeal had begun, and that they and other US authorities were involved.