Dr Aafia Siddiqui - Prisoner 650

[I wrote this article for ISN Security Watch in October 2008. Despite so much international pressure, the Pentagon had the guts to fly her over to United States from Bagram, hide her children and denying their existence in its custody, and trying her in US court without its jurisdiction. Obama administration seems more trigger happy than his predecessor . . . The United States changing for the worst at least so far . . .] Please read and comment . . .

The mystery surrounding the disappearance, terror-related detention and trial of a Pakistani female doctor adds fuel to the fire for an angry public, Naveed Ahmad reports for ISN Security Watch.

By Naveed Ahmad in Islamabad and Karachi for ISN Security Watch 


http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?id=92219&lng=en

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Though Pakistani Dr Aafia Siddiqui allegedly has been held by US forces for over four years, it was only on 6 July this year that the story came to the world when British journalist Yvonne Ridley published a report about the "grey lady" in custody at Afghanistan's Bagram Detention Center.

However, there had been reports of Siddiqui's disappearance earlier in the year.

In April this year, Newsline published a detailed account of Siddiqui's disappearance along with her three children en route to the airport. On 2 April 2003, then-interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told local reporters that Siddiqui had been arrested for her connections with al-Qaida. "You will be astonished to know about the activities of Dr Aafia," he told reporters at the time.

Moreover, a book of memoirs - Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar - co-authored by former Gitmo detainee Moazzam Begg with Victoria Brittain  mentions Siddiqui as the "grey lady" at the Bagram prison, known there as "Prisoner 650."

Though the Pakistani public has expressed outrage at the story since its initial publication by Newsline in April, Ridley's story served to further fuel the fires of anti-American sentiment.

Her story - and that of her children - remains a mystery.

"Prisoner 650" faces a possible life sentence for allegedly grabbing a US Army officer's M-4 rifle while she was being detained, shooting at another officer and threatening all seven members of an Army and FBI team before she was shot and subdued, according to Ridley's account.

According to the New York Times, Siddiqui was transferred to New York from Afghanistan on 5 August, where the authorities say she tried to kill American soldiers who had gone to interrogate her after she was taken into custody in July. According to this account, she was taken into custody in July this year, rather than over four years ago.
 

According to Newsday, Siddiqui was "originally arrested in Afghanistan on July 17 and brought to the United States to stand trial on attempted murder and other charges."

Siddiqui's family in Karachi, however, claims she went missing on 30 March 2003 with her three children - Mohammad Ahmad (now 11) Mariam (10), and Suleman (5) - as they left Karachi for the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The family claims they were informed of Siddiqui's detention in Afghanistan in late 2003 by a government official sympathetic to their cause.

The US denies these claims.

"As the Department of Justice has made clear, Ms. Siddiqui was not in U.S. custody before she was detained on July 17, 2008," The Washington Post quoted CIA spokesman George Little as saying. "Any suggestion that the CIA would imprison her children is wrong and offensive. Had we known where Ms. Siddiqui was prior to her capture, we would have shared that information with our partners in this country and overseas. She was a fugitive from American justice."
 

What we do know for sure is that Siddiqui is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn during her trial. And as to where two of her missing children may be, that is anyone's guess.

Chain of mysteries

In March 2003, Siddiqui was accused of being a high-profile al-Qaida operative, who had allegedly supplied precious gems from Africa to fund the 9/11 attacks. A biographical summary of terrorism suspects by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence described Siddiqui as part of a ring of "al-Qaida operatives and facilitators," and said she also helped 9/11 suspect Majid Khan with travel documents.

However, these allegations have not appeared on the charge-sheet since the hearing started in September this year in New York; instead Siddiqui is being charged only with firing on US soldiers and is being pressed about her possession of some maps and pictures of landmark New York buildings.

Since the start of her trial in New York, the Pakistani government has been seeking the repatriation of Siddiqui and her three children.

US Justice Department documents seen by ISN Security Watch confirmed that the eldest son, Ahmad, was under the supervision of US authorities in Afghanistan, but there is no mention of the other two children. Ahmad has since been returned to Pakistan.

Following tremendous pressure from Pakistan, its civil society and international human rights watchdogs, Siddiqui's eldest son was flown to Islamabad on 15 September. Currently, the 11-year-old is receiving counseling and staying with his aunt, Dr Fowzia Siddiqui.

Terrorist, victim or patient?

More mysteries are being unveiled as the trial proceeds in the southern district court of New York. The indictment hearing of Dr Siddiqui in Afghanistan was postponed until 22 September after she refused to appear before the court in protest against being strip searched. Her defense counsel and family allege that she was repeatedly raped in custody.

On 23 September, District Court Judge Richard Berman entered a plea of not guilty on the defendant's behalf and ordered a psychiatric evaluation to assess if she was fit to stand trial. In a letter to US District Judge Richard Berman, US Attorney Michael Garcia said that there was reason to believe Siddiqui was suffering from a mental illness.

According to Bernman, a competency hearing will be held on 17 December.

Speaking to ISN Security Watch in Karachi, Siddiqui's neighbors described her as a very polite and shy woman who was barely noticeable in gatherings and kept a quiet apartment on the 20th floor of the Back Bay Manor in Roxbury, Boston. 

She was particularly known for her religious activities, such as distributing copies of the Holy Koran to prisoners and raising funds for Bosnian war victims. According to Pakistani reports, Siddiqui had lived in the US for 12 years before her return to Karachi and her disappearance there.

Her husband, Mohammed Amjad Khan, was known for his extreme religious views and his ambitions to convert people to Islam. One Boston friend, who requested anonymity, said Amjad never believed in using weapons or forcefully implementing his views and belonged to Lahore-based "Tablighi Jama'at," which focuses purifying the soul through prayers and meditation.

Siddiqui's disappearance followed the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed from Pakistan. It is assumed that this key al-Qaida operative had thrown up her name during interrogation. The FBI believes that Siddiqui's post-office box was used by Majid Khan. Sharp argued that his client may have trusted the man out of naivety, terming the incident "a case of stolen identity."

Iqbal Haider, a Karachi-based lawyer and human rights activist, believes the case is severely flawed. "How can a Pakistani national be tried in an American court if she is not a US citizen and the alleged crime was not committed on US soil?" he tells ISN Security Watch in Karachi.

Haider also questions the rationale behind the alleged abduction of Siddiqui's three children by the intelligence agents. "Are these kids terrorists, sleepers or financers? Nobody is talking about this," he says.

In the meantime, Dr Fowzia claims she has been receiving threats during her campaign for Siddiqui's release. "I am receiving anonymous threatening phone calls . . . I cannot trust anyone."

War on terror fallout

Fowzia has been assured by the Pakistani foreign minister, government and opposition that every possible effort is being made to have her sister extradited to Pakistan along with her children. Both houses of parliament passed unanimous resolutions to repatriate Siddiqui.

Though anti-American sentiment in Pakistan continues to grow, many analysts believe that unlike the cases of other missing persons handed over to the US by former president General Pervez Musharraf, the case of Siddiqui and her children may have a happy ending yet.

Rashid Mafzool Zaka, an expert in security and foreign affairs, believes that "tremendous pressure by human rights organizations and media would make Aafia and her children an exception as the matter is too sensitive even for the American public to ignore in name of terrorism."

On 11 August, the Washington Post quoted Bruce Hoffman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University, as saying that "the [US] government has realized it is much easier to make a criminal case than a terrorism case, which involves conspiracy and sensitive materials." Until recently, Siddiqui might have "disappeared into the enemy combatant protocols," he was quoted as saying.

In the meantime, while Siddiqui's lawyer and family members continue to pressure authorities regarding the whereabouts of the defendant's two remaining children, Washington continues to deny they are being held in custody.
Pakistani officials also say they have no information on the whereabouts of Siddiqui's two children. 

An Afghan embassy spokesman in Islamabad told ISN Security Watch: "There is no information about these two Pakistani juveniles in any of our prisons."

Human rights activist Amina Masood Janjua, the wife of a missing person, says missing people are picked by the Pakistani intelligence agencies for a few months before being handed over to the Americans, who keep them either at the Kandahar or Bagram prisons in Afghanistan before sending some to Gitmo.

Many still believe that Siddiqui has been lucky to be heard by a federal judge unlike dozens of other quietly languishing at Guantanamo.

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Naveed Ahmad is ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Besides reporting for Pakistani TV channel, Geo News and Germany's DW-TV, he also strings for newspapers in the US and Middle East.