"Aafia Siddiqui was extradited to the US on 4th August 2008 on charges of attempted murder and assault. She denies the charges and claims to have been held in US custody since her disappearance in March 2003. Her son Ahmad remains in Afghan custody. The whereabouts of her two other children, missing for 5 years remain unknown."
A new chapter in the long and painful saga of the "War on Terror" has been revealed to the public. The facts are murky, the details impossible to confirm.
While there are several possibilities, there is one that most will find almost impossible to believe. We are not ready to believe that Dr. Aafia is a star terrorist- a claim that is ironically being pushed by the US Government and not denied by Al-Qaeda. Why? The answer lies in each group's malicious agenda.
Below is the text of a response in the comments section of the above-linked article from Maryann Hassan that succinctly points out the problems with the case against Aafia Siddiqui.
Aafia disappeared in March 2003 - the FBI and Pakistani officials initially admitted she was in custody. A few weeks later they retracted this. There was no news of her whereabouts until August 2008. Her family were meanwhile threatened and told to keep quiet and not pursue the case - why do this if the intelligence agencies had nothing to hide; if Aafia was, as they now claim, lying low and hiding in Pakistan for five years?
In that time period we have reports from several detainees held in Bagram of a woman prisoner held there between 2002-2005. We have been told she is Pakistani, appearing to be in her 40's, that she was abused. The screams of this woman were heard by other prisoners. Her prisoner no. was 650. The Red Cross privately confirmed to Moazzam Begg, ex Gtmo detainee, that a woman had been held in Bagram in 2003 and they had met her. The US denied that there was any prisoner 650 or any woman in Bagram but in recent weeks they have backtracked and said there was a woman held there but she does not match the description of Aafia Siddiqui.
Does it really sound plausible that after there is international uproar following the press conference with Yvonne Ridley and Saghir Hussain in Pakistan, when the Pakistani courts file a habeas petition, ordering that Aafia be brought before the court, that suddenly, after five years when the pressure mounts, she conveniently turns up in Afghanistan, outside the house of the Governor of Ghazni, with dangerous chemical substances in her purse, anarchist manuals on explosives, plots about attacking landmarks in New York? That some woman rang the Afghan police and said that there is this woman about to perform a suicide bombing outside the governor's house? If this is a woman the FBI have been lookign for, for five years, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to be in such a place (and to bring your son along too)?
Does it sound plausible that they would present a detainee in Afghan custody to the media in a press conference the day they are arrested (unprecedented)?
Does it sound plausible that within days they would extradiate a foreign national from Afghan custody to the US and charge them in a civilian court (unprecedented)?
Is it not strange that in the media we had reports that the Afghan did not wnat to give her to the US and an argument ensued; in some cases they said this was the cause of her being shot (caught in the crossfire). That later the governor of Ghazni backtracked and said there was no argument?
Is it credible that the US and Afghans would keep a woman with all these explosives and bomb plots on her "unsecured" - not shackled, not handcuffed, not treated like all t he other detainees in US and Afghan custody? That she would be conveniently hiding behind a curtain when FBI officials came into the room - not knowing she was there?
Is it plausible they'd put the weapon down right next to the curtain and she'd be able to pick it up and shoot at them?
Aafia is 35-40kg, extremely frail - is it feasible she'd be able to shoot and struggle with six male US soldiers as they claim?
They say Aafia is so devout and yet they claim she shouted at the US soldiers "get the f*** out of here"?
We then on the other hand have the word of our sister Aafia that she has been held in custody "for years" by the US; that she has been held in Bagram; that she has been, in the words of her lawyer after meeting with her, "horrendously abused... physically and psychologically". We have the court appointed lawyer saying she has all the signs of PTSD. We have her shaking her head in court, denying the allegations against her. We know she is very disturbed and distraught, not knowing the welfare and whereabouts of her children.
And if Aafia had been in hiding for years, and had not been in US custody, then where are her children?
Can anyone really give credence to the US' version of events?