US
Frame-up Of Aafia Siddiqui Begins To Unravel: Pakistani
Victim Of Rendition And Torture
7 February 2010By Ali Ismail
Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui went on trial
in a federal courtroom in New York City on January 19,
charged with the attempted murder of US personnel in
Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province in 2008. The case
against Dr. Siddiqui, 37, is rapidly unraveling due to
lack of evidence and discordant testimony from
witnesses.
It is becoming increasingly evident that the charges
amount to a frame-up that has been staged to cover up
the fact that Siddiqui, along with her eldest son, had
been held without charges in the US military’s
notorious Bagram prison in Afghanistan between 2003
and 2008 where they were subjected to torture. Two of
Dr. Siddiqui’s younger children are still missing.
According to the account given by US authorities,
Aafia Siddiqui was taken into custody by Afghan
security services in July of 2008 after they alleged
having found a list of US targets for terrorist
attacks as well as bomb-making instructions and
assorted chemicals.
Despite these claims, Siddiqui is not charged with any
terror-related offenses. Instead, she is indicted for
allegedly having seized an automatic weapon and fired
on her Afghan and American captors when a group of FBI
agents and US Army officers arrived to collect her.
The most serious charge against her is using a firearm
in committing a felony, the gun in question being a US
soldier’s rifle.
Siddiqui was shot twice in the stomach and barely
survived after medics at Bagram air field had to make
an incision from her breastbone to her bellybutton to
remove the bullets. It was reported that part of her
intestines had to be removed to save her life.
The accusations against Siddiqui strain credulity and
have been fervently denied by her relatives, her
defense attorneys, and human rights organizations, all
of whom claim that she had been held in secret US
detention facilities where she was physically and
sexually abused ever since she disappeared off the
streets of Karachi in the spring of 2003 with her
three children, then seven, five, and six months old.
According to the German weekly, Der Spiegel, just a
few days before she disappeared, Affia Siddiqui had
contacted her former professor, Robert Sekuler, at
Brandeis University in search of a job, complaining
that there weren’t any job opportunities in Pakistan
for a woman of her educational background.
Dr. Siddiqui is a Pakistani national who was educated
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis
University. In July of 2001, she and her husband at
the time were scrutinized by the FBI for their alleged
association with Islamic charities. Following the
events of September 11, 2001 the couple returned to
Pakistan at a time when hundreds of Pakistanis and
other Muslims were rounded up for questioning across
the US. The family resided in Karachi where Aafia
Siddiqui was employed at Aga Khan University.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,
Aafia Siddiqui and her children were kidnapped by
Pakistani intelligence agents on their way to the
airport in Karachi. Their whereabouts remained unknown
until Aafia Siddiqui and her eldest son, Ahmed, were
reported detained in Afghanistan in July of 2008,
several years after their disappearance. While the
Pakistani Interior Ministry had initially confirmed
that the abduction had taken place, it later claimed
to have been mistaken and stated that Siddiqui was not
in Pakistani custody. This about-face was an attempt
to conceal the complicity of Pakistani intelligence
services in the US government’s rendition of Siddiqui
to Afghanistan and her subsequent ordeal.
Aafia Siddiqui’s sister, Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui, had
informed the press that she and her mother had
journeyed to the US in 2003 to meet with FBI
officials, who had claimed that Aafia Siddiqui would
soon be released. In Pakistan, Siddiqui’s family was
repeatedly harassed and received numerous death
threats from sinister forces within the Pakistani
ruling elite. The family was ordered not to make any
public appeals in support of Aafia and her three
children.
Between 2003 and 2008, when Siddiqui’s whereabouts
were still unknown, the US claimed she was working on
behalf of Al Qaeda. In May of 2004, she was listed by
US officials as one of the seven “most wanted” Al
Qaeda fugitives. The US has also spuriously claimed
that she is married to Ammar al-Baluchi, who is
reported to be the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
the so-called “mastermind” behind the 9/11 attacks.
The claim that Siddiqui was married to al-Baluchi was
based solely on coerced statements made by Mohammed,
who has been repeatedly tortured.
The US military and the FBI have consistently denied
that Siddiqui had been in US custody prior to her
arrest in 2008. In reality, Aafia Siddiqui spent the
years between 2003 and 2008 at the detention facility
at Bagram air base, where many referred to her as the
“Grey Lady of Bagram.”
Around the same time as her staged arrest, the British
journalist, Yvonne Ridley, had been bringing attention
to an unknown female detainee in Bagram prison who was
known as Prisoner No. 650. In his book, “Enemy
Combatant,” Moazzam Begg recalled hearing the woman’s
piercing screams as she was being tortured while he
was imprisoned in the same facility. According to
Ridley, in 2005 male prisoners at the facility were so
disturbed by her screams and sobs that they staged a
hunger strike that lasted for six days.
When she was arrested in 2008, her then 11 year-old
son Ahmed, a US citizen, was by her side. The
traumatized boy has since been repatriated to
Pakistan, where he is now living with his aunt, Dr.
Fawzia Siddiqui. According to his aunt, Pakistani
authorities have forbidden Ahmed from speaking to the
news media.
Siddiqui’s appearance has changed markedly since 2002,
according to her lawyers. She has suffered a broken
nose, is deathly pale, and extremely frail, weighing
about 100 pounds. When she arrived in the US, she was
suffering from acute trauma, according to her lawyers
who were outraged that she did not immediately receive
the urgent medical attention. Siddiqui had been
suffering from agonizing pain from the wounds she had
sustained in Afghanistan and was slumped over in her
wheelchair when she arrived in court in August of
2008.
Her trial was delayed as her lawyers argued that she
was mentally unfit to participate in her own defense.
However, prosecutors eventually found mental health
experts to allege that she was faking her condition to
escape punishment. Judge Richard Berman ruled that she
was mentally fit for trial.
The paucity of media attention given to the trial is
noteworthy, particularly given that Siddiqui was
listed as a top Al Qaeda suspect. The tabloid press in
New York City, where the proceedings have received
limited attention, press has taken her guilt for
granted, cynically dubbing her “Lady Al Qaeda.” The
trial is being closely watched in Pakistan, where
Siddiqui’s ordeal has outraged many and has sparked
protests around the country.
From its beginning, the trial has been marked by
questionable irregularities, and the judge has gone
out of his way to accommodate the prosecutors. Not a
single Pakistani journalist was granted press
credentials for the opening statements last Tuesday.
Defense attorneys protested the robust security
measures put in place during the trial, which
obviously reinforces the notion that Siddiqui poses a
security threat to the US.
In a clear violation of her rights, Judge Berman has
repeatedly thrown Siddiqui out of the courtroom for
what he called her “outbursts”. The “outbursts,” were
Siddiqui’s anguished claims of innocence and protests
that she was tortured.
“Since I’ll never get a chance to speak,” she had told
the court. “If you were in a secret prison, or your
children were tortured…Give me a little credit, this
is not a list of targets of New York. I was never
planning to bomb it. You’re lying.”
The trial has also been marked by contradictory
testimony from prosecution witnesses, which has
undermined the case against Siddiqui.
On the third day of the trial, Assistant US Attorney
Jenna Dabbs displayed several photographs of the room
where the prosecution claims the shooting occurred.
However, Carlo Rosatti, an FBI firearms expert who
investigated the case, acknowledged last Friday that
he had found “no shell casings, no bullets, no bullet
fragments, no evidence the gun [the soldier’s M-4
rifle] was fired.” The only shell casing from the
scene was from a 9-milllimeter pistol with which
Siddiqui was shot. On the fourth day of the trial,
another FBI agent testified that the FBI never found
Aafia Siddiqui’s fingerprints on the M-4 rifle.
The warrant officer who shot Siddiqui also took the
stand, recounting the version of events laid out by
the prosecution. He claimed that on the day he and his
colleagues went to collect Siddiqui, she suddenly got
a hold of his rifle and aimed it at US personnel, at
which point he opened fire with his 9-millimeter
pistol.
When Siddiqui yelled out, “I never shot it,” she was
tossed out of the courtroom for the remainder of the
day.
The unnamed warrant officer, who had hobbled to the
stand using a cane, was also permitted to recount how
he was wounded in a recent and totally unrelated
roadside bombing in Afghanistan, shedding tears as he
did so. While having absolutely no relevance to the
trial, the soldier’s wounds were invoked as part of a
brazen attempt by prosecutors to sway the jury. Judge
Berman’s allowing the testimony demonstrates the
rigged character of the trial.
Sensing that Siddiqui was indeed emotionally unstable,
prosecutors moved to force her to testify in the hopes
that she would incriminate herself. Defense attorneys
argued that she wasn’t mentally fit to take the stand.
Once again, Judge Berman sided with the prosecution.
Berman warned Aafia Siddiqui that she is not permitted
to speak about events prior to her arrest in July of
2008. Nevertheless, on Thursday Siddiqui repeatedly
told the jury that she was held in secret prisons by
US authorities, according to the Associated Press of
Pakistan. She told the jury how she was shot just
after she peeked through a curtain in search of an
escape route. She added that it would be ludicrous to
believe that a soldier would leave his gun where an
allegedly dangerous suspect could get a hold of it.
“It’s too crazy,” she said. “It’s just ridiculous. I
didn’t do that.”
When asked by a US Attorney about the contents of her
purse which allegedly contained chemicals, bomb-making
instructions, and a list of US targets, Siddiqui said,
“I can’t testify to that, the bag was not mine, so I
didn’t necessarily go through everything.” Siddiqui’s
lawyers have claimed the bag and its contents were
planted evidence. Her attorney, Elaine Whitfield
Sharp, said back in 2008 that Siddiqui had been
carrying what amounted to “conveniently incriminating
evidence.”
“Of course they found all this stuff on her. It was
planted on her. She is the ultimate victim of the
American dark side,” another one of her attorneys had
told the Associated Press in 2008.
Siddiqui also told the jury that her children were
constantly on her mind and that she was disoriented at
the time of her arrest in 2008.
On Friday, the prosecution called Gary Woodworth of
Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club in Massachusetts to
testify. Woodworth claimed that Siddiqui had taken a
12-hour pistol course at some point in the early
1990s. The Associated Press of Pakistan reported that
Woodworth was noticeably distressed when the defense
team demanded to know how it was possible for him to
recall a specific individual from two decades earlier,
when he’d had hundreds of students. Woodworth admitted
that he had no records or documentation to back up his
assertions, insisting that he was good at remembering
faces.
Also on Friday, FBI Special Agent Bruce Kamerman
testified that Siddiqui grabbed the assault rifle in a
fit of rage. However, he appeared to be flustered when
one of Siddiqui’s attorneys produced his hand-written
notes in which there was no mention of her grabbing
the gun.
In spite of the obviously fabricated character of the
prosecution’s case, there is no guarantee of an
acquittal.
Even if she is found not guilty, the fate of Aafia’s
Siddiqui’s other two children, Mariam and Suleman,
remains unknown. Siddiqui recounts that, while she was
held in solitary confinement for five years, she was
endlessly forced to listen to recordings of her
screaming, terrified children. Her baby, Suleman, she
said, was taken away from her immediately, never to be
seen again. She said her daughter Mariam was
occasionally shown to her, but only as an obscure
figure behind a sheet of opaque glass.
The horrifying case of Aafia Siddiqui and her three
children is but one example of the criminal and
inhuman practices of US imperialism and its ally, the
Pakistani bourgeoisie. Hundreds if not thousands of
Pakistanis have been kidnapped by Pakistani
intelligence services and handed over to US personnel
to be dispatched to Bagram, Guantanamo and other
“black site” torture chambers around the globe. While
the Pakistani government now claims to be doing
everything in its power to bring Siddiqui back to
Pakistan, its supposed efforts are little more than
damage control.
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EsinIslam.Com
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