Prisoner 650' at Bagram

'Prisoner 650' at Bagram, suspected to be a Pakistani woman allegedly raped, tortured and kept in a cage by US soldiers in a men's facility. Rights activists believe she could be Dr Afia Siddiqui who disappeared from Karachi along with her three underage kids in 2003.


IslamicTube.net : Prisoner 650 - The Grey Ghost Lady of Bagram - Prisoner 650 is a Pakistani women held by the terrorist American military for many years without any trial in the notorious Bagram Prison in Afghanistan. Her screams have reached the ea

Four years in Bagram as Prisoner 650
Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:03:00


Yvonne Ridley
British journalist Yvonne Ridley flew to Pakistan on a whirlwind trip this week to highlight the plight of a woman who has been held in US custody for more than four years.

She referred to the woman, known only by her prisoner number 650, as The Grey Lady of Bagram.

More than 100 journalists attended the press conference hosted by Pakistan political leader Imran Khan who pledged his full support to Ridley's mission, which is part of a Cage Prisoner Campaign to help the female detainee.

A statement of support from British MP and RESPECT Party leader George Galloway was also read out during the conference.

Details of Prisoner 650 are being kept secret by the U.S. military.

On Monday night she said, “I think everyone was shocked to hear that the Americans were holding this woman at Bagram in Afghanistan. From the information coming through I am told she is being held in exactly the same conditions as the men and has absolutely no privacy when it comes to toilet and shower facilities.

“This would never happen to a Western woman and it shows just how women are viewed by the US military. There is even a suggestion she has been molested and sexually abused by her captors. We need to demand the truth,” added Ridley who was held captive herself in Afghanistan for 11 days in September 2001.

“I was released on humanitarian grounds. Mercifully my treatment was good, respectful and decent, although still terrifying,” she added.

Ridley, also a patron of the organization Cage Prisoner, revealed how she first read about the woman in a book written by ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg called Enemy Combatant.

“I remembered Moazzam telling me about the woman's screams and how he first imagined they could be from his wife. In truth, I thought maybe he had just been listening to a tape recorder as part of a form of mental torture.

“However, we now know the screams came from a woman who has been held in Bagram for some years. And without compromising anyone, we can also reveal from impeccable sources that her prison number is 650.

“This information has been enough to scramble the Pakistan media into action by demanding the return of this woman to her homeland immediately,” added Ridley.

Joining her at the open air press conference in Islamabad at the headquarters of Khan's PTI party was Saghir Hussain, a lawyer and member of Cage.

He handed over a dossier prepared by Cage which reveals the full extent of the Disappeared from Pakistan… individuals who have been literally kidnapped from the streets.

“Prisoner 650 is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg of human rights abuses, illegal detentions and rendition flights. It is a shameful episode in Pakistan's history which must be put right.”

Amina Masood Janjua, chair of the Defense of Human Rights, also joined the platform along with other supporters whose husbands, sons and brothers have disappeared without trace. She thanked Cage for its dossier and the supporting work it had conducted on the Disappeared.

“I wonder how can we hand over our sister to the non-Muslims for their illegal trial by men whose history is full of rape and other abuses to prisoners,” the Pakistani daily Dawn quoted Ridley as saying.

Ms. Ridley read the text from the book's section covering Mr. Begg's stay in Bagram, “I began to hear the chilling screams of a woman next door… Why have you got a woman next door? They told me there was no woman. But I was unconvinced. Those screams echoed through my worst nightmares for a long time. And I later learned in Guantanamo, from other prisoners, that they had heard the screams too.”

She said the account had been corroborated by four Arabs who had escaped from Bagram in July 2005. “While on the run, one not only confirmed he had heard a woman's screams, but said he had seen her.”

Ms. Ridley said, “My story made international headlines, front page pictures and major stories on TV. But there has not been one word, not one paragraph about Prisoner 650 -- the 'grey lady' of Bagram, a murderous detention facility under control of the U.S. military and intelligence services.”

She urged every Pakistani to ring America, and ask them who Prisoner 650 is. What was her crime? Who else was being held illegally? How many secret detention centers were there?

Ms. Ridley's colleague Saghir Hussain gave details about other people of the country who had 'disappeared'.

“All, like the grey lady of Bagram, have been illegally abducted by secretive intelligence agencies. They began disappearing in 2001 during the so-called war on terror,” he said.

Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan demanded that the government hold an investigation into the case. “What has the sovereign parliament done about the missing persons?” he asked.

Islam in Pakistan

Islam was brought to the South Asian subcontinent in the eighth century by wandering Sufi mystics known as pir. As in other areas where it was introduced by Sufis, Islam to some extent syncretized with preIslamic influences, resulting in a religion traditionally more flexible than in the Arab world. Two Sufis whose shrines receive much national attention are Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore (ca. eleventh century) and Shahbaz Qalander in Sehwan, Sindh (ca. twelfth century).

The Muslim poet-philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal first proposed the idea of a Muslim state in the subcontinent in his address to the Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930. His proposal referred to the four provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and the NorthWest Frontier--essentially what would became the post-1971 boundary of Pakistan. Iqbal's idea gave concrete form to the "Two Nations Theory" of two distinct nations in the subcontinent based on religion (Islam and Hinduism) and with different historical backgrounds, social customs, cultures, and social mores.

Islam was thus the basis for the creation and the unification of a separate state, but it was not expected to serve as the model of government. Mohammad Ali Jinnah made his commitment to secularism in Pakistan clear in his inaugural address when he said, "You will find that in the course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State." This vision of a Muslim majority state in which religious minorities would share equally in its development was questioned shortly after independence. The debate continued into the 1990s amid questions of the rights of Ahmadiyyas (a small but influential sect considered by orthodox Muslims to be outside the pale of Islam), issuance of identity cards denoting religious affiliation, and government intervention in the personal practice of Islam.

Forgiveness in Islam

Allah (SWT),who named Himself Ar-Rahman (The Beneficent) and Ar-Rahim (The Merciful) is also Al-Ghafoor (The Forgiving). His Mercy overtakes His punishment and anger. He is more merciful to His creations than a mother can be to her infants. He created "man with weakness"; thus He knows and we should know that "to err is human," and "no one is perfect."

Iblis (Satan), the cursed one, out of envy to Adam, has promised to himself "to attack children of Adam on their way to their journey toward God, so that those who fall prey to his attack will also have the same fate as himself (I'll take you down with me!). So he says, "I'll attack men from the front, behind and sides." (7:17) This means he will disguise himself as our friend, as our opponent, and side distractions of the world. He will then make us do wrong by presenting evil as good (poison candy in a nice wrapper), making us angry, jealous, envious, just "follow-the-leader" type, and we wrong ourselves and fall prey to his temptation. Iblis and his followers have a feast of joy and laugh at man's foolishness, until the man realizes his mistakes, repents and asks for forgiveness and he is forgiven, and then Iblis cries again.

Giving up Hope of the Mercy of Allah is a crime in itself:

"Say: 'O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of God: for God forgives all sins (except shirk): for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.'" (39:53)

"And it is He who accepts repentance from His servants and pardons the evil deed and knows what you do." (42:25)

In order for forgiveness to be accepted, these conditions should be met:

(1) The crime is committed out of ignorance, not with the intention that, "Let us go ahead and commit this crime as Allah is forgiving, so He will forgive us.";

(2) Quickly turn into shame and repentance after committing a crime out of ignorance;

(3) After asking for forgiveness, make a promise or pledge to "mend his ways", and to stick to his promise. Let us examine verses of Quran.

"...if any of you did evil in ignorance, and thereafter repented and amended (your conduct), lo! Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (6:54)

"Forgiveness is only incumbent on Allah towards those who do evil out of ignorance and then turn quickly (in repentance) to Allah. Toward them will Allah turn in mercy; for Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom." (4:17)

"Forgiveness is not for those who do ill until death faces one of them, who then says, 'Lo! I repent now, nor for those who die as disbelievers, for such we have prepared a painful doom.'" (4:18)

IS ANY CRIME OR TOO MANY CRIMES TOO BIG TO BE FORGIVEN?
Let us examine two Hadith.

1) Hadith Qudsi: Allah, the Almighty, has said:

O Son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O Son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O Son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins as great as the earth, and were you then to face Me ascribing no partners to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it.

2) Prophet (SW) has said:

A certain person had committed 99 murders. He went to a scholar and asked, is there any chance of my being forgiven? The scholar said no, you have committed too many crimes. The man killed the scholar too, but his heart was restless, so he went to another scholar and asked the same question. He was told yes, but you must leave this town of bad people and go live in the next town in the company of good people.

So the man set out to the town he was told to go to. On the way he died. A man passing by saw two angels arguing over his dead body. The Angel from Hell said, 'His body belongs to me as he had not done any good in his life.' The Angel from Heaven said, 'His body belongs to me as he had repented and was set out to be with good people.' The man who was the passer-by said, 'Let us measure the distance of his body from the town he left and the town he was going to.'

This was done. He was found to be nearer to the town he was going to. In another version, the earth was ordered by Allah to shrink and make the distance smaller, so that he was admitted to Heaven.

How does Allah forgive us?

When we commit a sin, four witnesses are established against us.

a) The place we did the crime (i.e., scene of the murder).

"On that day, the earth will reveal all its secrets." (99:4)

b) The organ we used to commit the crime. "When their ears, their eyes, their skin will testify against them." (41:21)

"That day we seal up mouths, and hands speak out and feet bear witness to all that they did." (36:65)

c) The Angels who record the deeds (Kiraman Katebeen).

"The honored writers know what you do." (82:11)

d) "We record that which they send before them, and their footprints, and all things we have kept in a clear register." (36:12)

Now, with four such strong witnesses, how can we present ourselves to Allah? So He (the Al-Wakeel--the Defender), like a smart lawyer, removes all the witnesses against those whose repentance has been accepted, so that we present ourselves with a clean record. Case dissolved due to lack of witnesses. Hadith is like this. "When Allah accepts repentance and forgives His servant, then recording angels erase their records, organs lose their memories, and earth removes its stains of evidence so that when that person appears before Allah, there is no one to be a witness against him. Subhan Allah.

How to ask for forgiveness when Adam and Eve realized they had done wrong but did not know how to ask for forgiveness:

Then learnt Adam from his Lord words of forgiveness, and his Lord turned toward him, for He is Oft-Forgiving and Most Merciful. (2:37)

What were those words taught to Adam?

They said, "Our Lord, we have wronged our souls and if you forgive us not, and bestow not upon us your mercy, we shall be losers. (7:23)

How did the Prophet Muhammad (AS) teach Aisha (RA) to ask for forgiveness in Ramadan?

O my Lord, forgive me, because you love to forgive, thus forgive me, O you Merciful!

Remember, asking for forgiveness is not just for our sins, but also for our needs as well.

And I have said! Seek forgiveness from your Lord. Lo! He is oft-forgiving (if you ask for forgiveness). He will give you plenty of rain, He will give you wealth and sons, and assign you Heaven and Rivers in the Heaven. (Surah Nuh:10-12)

Thus after repenting and asking for forgiveness, we must mend our ways and not go back to Kufr and fall prey to the tactics of Satan (Iblis) again. While we expect Allah to be kind and merciful and forgive our major and minor sins, we are unforgiving towards our fellow human beings!

Quran 16:125

A guide to the religion of Islam, Muslim history and civilizations, the rights of women in Islam, Islam in the West and around the world today plus Muslim schools and family life.

 Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious; for your Lord knows best who have strayed from His Path, and who are truly guided." Quran 16:125

Aafia Siddiqui

Aafia Siddiqui 

(born March 2, 1972, in Karachi Pakistan is a Pakistani Muslim neuroscientist accused of being an al-Qaeda member. In February 2010, she was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and attempting to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents who were seeking to interrogate her while she was in custody.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumna and Brandeis Ph.D., she had disappeared in March 2003. Her disappearance followed the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, alleged chief planner of the September 11 attacks and the uncle of her second husband, and the issuance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of a global "wanted for questioning" alert for her. In 2004, U.N. investigators identified her as an al-Qaeda member, and the FBI said she was a "terrorist facilitator" and listed her as one of the seven "most wanted" al-Qaeda fugitives.

She resurfaced when she was arrested July 17, 2008, by the Afghanistan National Police. The following day, when U.S. military personnel arrived at the Afghan facility meeting-room where she was being held, she allegedly came out from behind a curtain, picked up an M-4 assault rifle at the feet of one of the soldiers, and fired two shots at them, missing them. An officer returned fire, hitting her in the torso, and she was subdued. Siddiqui was charged with attempted murder, armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault on U.S. officers and employees. She was convicted in February 2010, in a Manhattan court, on all counts. She faces a minimum sentence of 30 years and a maximum of life in prison on the firearm charge, and could also get up to 20 years for each attempted murder and firearms charge and up to 8 years on each of the remaining assault counts when she is sentenced on May 6, 2010.

Siddiqui's family has asserted that she does not have any connection to al-Qaeda, that the U.S. secretly detained her for five years, and that she was tortured and raped, all claims that the U.S. and Pakistan flatly deny. After her conviction, thousands of people protested in Pakistan, and the Taliban threatened to kill a captured American soldier in retaliation.

Early life and education

Siddiqui was one of three siblings. raised first in Zambia until the age of eight, and then in Karachi, Pakistan. Her father, Muhammad Salay Siddiqui, was a British-trained neurosurgeon and her mother, Ismet (nee Faroochi), a now-retired homemaker who previously performed social work. Her brother Mohammad Azi Siddiqui, an architect, lives with his wife, a pediatrician, in Sugarland, Texas.Her sister, Fowzia Siddiqui, is a Harvard-trained neurologist married to Nassar Jamali, and worked in Sinai Hospital, Baltimore, before returning to Pakistan.

Siddiqui moved to Texas in the United States on a student visa in 1990, joining her brother. After attending the University of Houston for three semesters, she transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology^.

During her years at MIT, she was regarded as religious by her colleagues. She joined an association of Muslim students, and wrote three guides for teaching Islam. In 1992, as an MIT sophomore, Siddiqui received a Carroll L. Wilson Award for her research proposal "Islamization in Pakistan and its Effects on Women". As a junior, Siddiqui received a $1,200 City Days fellowship through MIT's program to help clean up Cambridge elementary school playgrounds. During her undergraduate years, she lived in McCormick Hall and worked at the MIT libraries, graduating from MIT in 1995 with a degree in biology. A year after she graduated, Siddiqui wrote an article for the MIT Information Systems newsletter about the File Transfer Protocol and the then-emerging World Wide Web.

During that time period, she solicited money for Al Kifah Refugee Center, now known as an al-Qaeda charitable front and al-Qaeda’s U.S operational headquarters, tied to Osama bin Laden and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. She also took a 12-hour pistol training course at the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club.

In 1995 she had an arranged marriage to anesthesiologist Amjad Mohammed Khan from Karachi, whom she had never seen. They were married over the phone.in 1999, while living in Boston, Siddiqui, her husband, and her sister founded the nonprofit Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching. She attended a mosque outside the city, where she stored copies of the Koran and other Islamic literature that she distributed. She went on to graduate study in cognitive neuroscience at Brandeis University, receiving a Ph.D. degree in 2001 for her dissertation, titled "Separating the Components of Imitation." She also co-authored several journal articles.

Siddiqui was one of six alleged al-Qaeda figures who were involved in buying diamonds in West Africa immediately prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks, according to a dossier prepared by U.N. investigators for the  Commission. According to Alan White, former chief investigator of a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Liberia, she was in Monrovia, Liberia, on June 16, 2001, using the alias of 'Fahrem', as she visited on behalf of al-Qaeda's leadership to buy blood diamonds worth $19 million, which were used to fund al-Qaeda operations.

According to Khan, after the September 11 attacks Siddiqui insisted on leaving the U.S., saying that it was unsafe for them and their children to remain because the U.S. government was abducting Muslim children. In May 2002, the FBI questioned Siddiqui and her husband regarding their purchase over the internet of $10,000 worth of night vision goggles, body armor, and military manuals including The Anarchist's Arsenal, Fugitive, Advanced Fugitive, and How to Make C-4. Khan claimed that these were for hunting and camping expeditions. On 

June 26, 2002, the couple returned to Pakistan.

In August 2002 the couple's marriage reached a breaking point. Khan went to Siddiqui's parents' home, and said he intended to divorce her. An argument took place between Khan and her father, and Siddiqui's father suffered a fatal heart attack on August 15, 2002. A few weeks later Siddiqui gave birth to their third child. Their divorce was finalized on October 21, 2002.

Her ex-husband has accused Siddiqui of being abusive and manipulative throughout their seven years of marriage, and said that Siddiqui had a violent personality and extremist views, leading him to suspect her of involvement in jihadi activities^. He has also said that Siddiqui wanted him to move to Afghanistan, and work as a medic for the mujahideen. They have three children: Ahmed (b. 1996), Maryam (b. 1998), and Suleman (b. 2002). The two older children are American citizens.

On December 25, 2002, Siddiqui made a trip to the U.S., saying that she was looking for a job. She left the U.S. on January 2, 2003. The FBI suspects that the real purpose of her trip was to open a P.O. box for an alleged al-Qaeda operative, Majid Khan, who is suspected of having planned attacks on gas stations and underground fuel-storage tanks in the Baltimore, Maryland—Washington, DC area on the orders of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed. Siddiqui listed Majid Khan as a co-owner, and falsely identified him as her husband. The key of the P.O. box was later found in the possession of Uzair Paracha, who was convicted of providing material support to al-Qaeda, and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in 2006. Siddiqui's ex-husband has also said he was suspicious of Siddiqui's intentions, as she made her trip at a time when U.S. universities are closed.

Disappearance and FBI warning

Before her disappearance, she was working at Aga Khan University in Karachi. On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, alleged chief planner of the September 11 attacks, was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Khalid reportedly revealed Siddiqui's name during his interrogation as a key al-Qaeda operative in Boston,and shortly thereafter a series of related arrests began. On the same day as Muhammad's arrest, Siddiqui emailed a former professor at Brandeis University and expressed interest in working in the U.S., citing lack of options in Karachi for women of her academic background. A few days later, afraid the FBI would find her in Karachi, she left her parents' house along with her three children. She took a taxi to the airport, ostensibly to catch a morning flight to Islamabad to visit her uncle, but disappeared.

Siddiqui's whereabouts and activities from March 2003 to July 2008 are a matter of dispute. In March 2003, the FBI issued a global "wanted for questioning" alert for Siddiqui and her ex-husband, Amjad Khan. While Siddiqui remained missing, Khan was questioned and subsequently released by the FBI. Multiple allegations were made against Siddiqui, to the effect that she was a "courier of blood diamonds and a financial fixer for al-Qaida". Khan believes she went into hiding after the global alert for her was issued. According to the U.S. and Khan, Siddiqui was at large, working on behalf of al-Qaeda.

During her 'disappearance' Khan said he saw her at Islamabad airport in April 2003, as she disembarked from a flight with their son, and said he helped Inter-Services Intelligence identify her. Two years later he said he saw her in a Karachi traffic jam. Siddiqui's maternal uncle, Shams ul-Hassan Faruqi, says he met her in January 2008 when she came to visit him in Islamabad, and asked for his help in order to cross over into Afghanistan where she thought she would be safe in the hands of the Taliban. Faruqi said that he immediately notified his sister, Siddiqui's mother, who came in the next day to meet her daughter. He said that Siddiqui stayed with them for two days.

In 2003-04, the FBI and the Pakistani government said they did not know Siddiqui's whereabouts.  U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft referred to her as being the most wanted woman in the world, an Al Qaeda "facilitator" who posed a "clear and present danger to the U.S.", and on May 26, 2004, the U.S. listed her among the seven "most wanted" al-Qaeda fugitives.

Family assertion Siddiqui detained by Pakistan and the U.S.

Siddiqui's family said that she does not have any connections to al-Qaeda and that the U.S. secretly detained her in Afghanistan after she disappeared in Pakistan in March 2003 with her three children. They point to comments by former Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, detainees who say they believe a woman held at the prison while they were there was Siddiqui. Her sister said that she had been raped, and tortured for five years. In late March 2003, Pakistani news reports said Pakistani authorities had detained Siddiqui, and had questioned her with FBI agents, but Pakistani authorities denied the reports. An Afghan intelligence official said he believes that Siddiqui was working with Jaish-e-Mohammed (the "Army of God), a Pakistani Islamic mujahedeen military group that fights in Afghanistan. According to Yvonne Ridley, she spent those years in solitary confinement at Bagram as Prisoner 650. Siddiqui herself gave conflicting explanations, alternately claiming that she was kidnapped by U.S. intelligence and Pakistani intelligence, while also claiming that she was working for Pakistani intelligence during this time. Siddiqui reportedly said that she worked at the Karachi Institute of Technology in 2005, was in Afghanistan in the winter of 2007, stayed for a time during her disappearance in Quetta, Pakistan, and was given shelter by different people.

The U.S. government said it had not held Siddiqui during that time period, and had no knowledge of her whereabouts from March 2003 until July 2008. In February 2009, Siddiqui's ex-husband told a Pakistani newspaper that most of the claims in Pakistani press reports related to her and their children were being propagated to garner public support and sympathy for her, but that they were one-sided and in most instances untrue.

Children

Siddiqui has not explained clearly what happened to her two younger children, who are missing. She told one FBI agent that sometimes one has to take up a cause that is more important than one's children. She has alternated between saying that the two youngest children are dead, and that they are with her sister Fowzia. Her ex-husband believes that the children are in Karachi, and in contact with Siddiqui's family. He also says that the missing children were seen in Siddiqui's house in Karachi and Islamabad on several occasions since their alleged disappearance in 2003.

Her eldest son, Ahmad, resurfaced with her in 2008. He now lives with his aunt in Karachi, and has been prohibited from talking to the press by Siddiqui's family.An Afghan intelligence official in the Ministry of the Interior said the boy said that he and Siddiqui worked in an office in Pakistan, collecting money for poor people, and that they were later dispatched with maps and documents to Afghanistan.

Her ex-husband has unsuccessfully sought custody of their eldest son, and said that he suspected the two younger children were with Siddiqui's family, and not in U.S. detention.

Re-marriage

At the time of her arrest in 2008, when FBI agents questioned her she said she was married to Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a nephew of al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Al-Baluchi is in U.S. custody and faces the death penalty for aiding the 9/11 hijackers. Siddiqui's marriage to al-Baluchi was denied by her family, but confirmed by Pakistani intelligence, the FBI, and—according to court records—by Siddiqui herself. A defense psychologist also confirmed the marriage, and BBC confirmed it from security sources and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's family.

Arrest

Siddiqui was encountered on the evening of July 17, 2008, by officers of the Ghazni Province Afghan National Police outside the Ghazni governor's compound. Wearing a burqua and with two small bags at her side, crouching on the ground, she aroused the suspicion of a man who feared she might be concealing a bomb under her burqua. He called the police. She was accompanied by a teenage boy about 12, who she claimed was an orphan she had adopted. She said her name was Saliha, that she was from Multan in Pakistan, and that the boy's name was Ali Hassan.Discovering that she did not speak either of Afghanistan's main dialects, Pashtu or Dari, the officers regarded her as suspicious.

The officers searched her handbag.They found that she had a number of documents written in Urdu and English describing the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, Ebola, dirty bombs, and radiological agents (which discussed mortality rates of certain of the weapons), and handwritten notes referring to a "mass casualty attack" that listed various U.S. locations and landmarks (including the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the New York City subway system). She also had documents detailing U.S. "military assets", excerpts from The Anarchist's Arsenal, a one-gigabyte digital media storage device (thumb drive) that contained over 500 electronic documents (including correspondence referring to attacks by "cells", describing the U.S. as an enemy, and discussing recruitment of jihadists and training), and "numerous chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars", according to the later complaint against her. She had with her about two pounds of sodium cyanide, a highly toxic poisonous substance. Other notes described various ways to attack enemies, including by destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and using gliders.

The officers arrested her, as she cursed them, and took her to a police station. DNA testing performed a short time later revealed that the boy was in fact was her eldest son, Ahmed.

Attack

The following day, on July 18, two FBI agents, a U.S. Army warrant officer, a U.S. Army captain, and their U.S. military interpreters arrived in Ghazni to interview Siddiqui at the Afghan National Police facility where she was being held. They entered a meeting room that was partitioned by a curtain, but did not realize that Siddiqui was standing unsecured behind the curtain. The warrant officer sat down adjacent to the curtain, and put his loaded M-4 assault rifle on the floor by his feet, next to the curtain.

Siddiqui allegedly drew back the curtain, picked up the M-4 assault rifle, and pointed it at the captain. “I could see the barrel of the rifle, the inner portion of the barrel of the weapon, that indicated to me that it was pointed straight at my head,” he said. She threatened them loudly in English, and yelled "Get the fuck out of here" and "May the blood of [unintelligible] be on your [head or hands]". He dove for cover to his left, as she yelled "Allah Akbar" and fired at least two shots at them, missing them An interpreter who was seated closest to her lunged at her, grabbed and pushed the rifle, and attempted to wrest it from her.At that point the warrant officer returned fire with a 9-millimeter pistol, hitting her in the torso, and one of the interpreters managed to wrestle the rifle away from her. During the ensuing struggle she initially struck and kicked the officers, while shouting in English that she wanted to kill Americans, and then lost consciousness.

She was taken to Bagram Air Base by helicopter in critical condition. When she arrived at the hospital she was 3 on Glasgow Coma Scale, but she underwent emergency surgery and recovered over the next two weeks.

Trial

Siddiqui was charged on July 31, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with assaulting with a deadly weapon, and with attempting to kill, U.S. personnel. She was indicted on September 3, 2008, on two counts of attempted murder of U.S. nationals, officers, and employees, assault with a deadly weapon, carrying and using a firearm, and three counts of assault on U.S. officers and employees.

Her trial was subject to a number of delays, the longest being six months in order to perform a psychiatric evaluation of claims that she was "going crazy", with hallucinations and crying fits. Three of four psychiatric experts concluded that she was faking her symptoms of mental illness.

The Pakistani government paid $2 million for the services of the three lawyers to defend Siddiqui during her trial.Many Siddiqui supporters were present during tje proceedings, and outside the court dozens of people rallied to demand her release.

Jury selection controversy; threatened boycott of trial

Siddiqui said she did not want Jews on the jury. She demanded that all prospective jurors be DNA-tested, and excluded from the jury at her trial "if they have a Zionist or Israeli background ... they are all mad at me ... I have a feeling everyone here is them—subject to genetic testing. They should be excluded if you want to be fair." Siddiqui's legal team said, in regard to her jury selection comments, that her incarceration had damaged her mind.

Prior to her trial, Siddiqui said she considered herself innocent of all charges, which she maintained she could prove, but refused to do in court. On January 11, 2010, Siddiqui told Manhattan federal judge Richard Berman that she wanted to fire her legal team. Siddiqui told the judge that she would not cooperate with her attorneys. She also said she did not trust the judge, and that she was "boycotting the trial ... there are too many injustices. I’m out of this". Following her outburst she was removed from the court, though the judge said she would be allowed back, as she was entitled to be present at her trial.

Trial proceedings

Jury selection was completed and her trial began with opening arguments on January 19, 2010, in New York City.

Prior to the jury entering the courtroom, Siddiqui told onlookers that she would not work with her lawyers, and that: "This isn't a fair court ... Why do I have to be here? ... There are many different versions of how this happened". She also said: "I have information about attacks, more than 9/11! ... I want to help the President to end this group, to finish them ... They are a domestic, U.S. group; they are not Muslim."

Three government witnesses testified first, out of a total of nine called by the prosecution: Army Captain Robert Snyder, John Threadcraft, a former army officer, and John Jefferson, an FBI agent. As Snyder testified that Siddiqui had been arrested with a handwritten note outlining plans to attack various U.S. sites, she disrupted the proceedings, saying: "If you were in a secret prison ... where children were tortured ... This is no list of targets against New York. I was never planning to bomb it. You're lying."

As result of her outbursts, Siddiqui was repeatedly removed from the court, but told by the judge that she could watch the proceedings on closed-circuit television in an adjacent holding cell, a proposal that she rejected. A request by the defense lawyers to declare a mistrial was turned down by the judge.

The defense counsel said that the jury would not see any forensic evidence that the rifle was fired in the interrogation room. It said it expected to show that there were very different versions of the story, and that her handbag contents were not credible as evidence because they were sloppily handled. FBI agent John Jefferson and Ahmed Gul, an army interpreter, recounted their alleged struggle with her in Ghazni. Judge Berman warned Siddiqui that no more outbursts would be tolerated, which she accepted: "I’m just going to be quiet, but it doesn’t mean I agree."

An FBI agent said that they did not find her fingerprints on the rifle. The testimony of Gul appeared, according to the defense, to differ from that given by Snyder with regard to whether Siddiqui was standing or on her knees as she fired the rifle. When Siddiqui testified, in addition to denying that she grabbed the rifle, though she admitted trying to escape, she said she had been tortured in secret prisons before her arrest by a “group of people pretending to be Americans doing bad things in America’s name.”

Conviction

The trial lasted two weeks, and the jury deliberated for three days before reaching a verdict.

On February 3, 2010, she was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault on U.S. officers and employees. She faces a minimum sentence of 30 years and a maximum of life in prison on the firearm charge, and could also get up to 20 years for each attempted murder and firearms charge and up to 8 years on each of the remaining assault counts.Sentence will be passed on May 6, 2010.

Reaction in Pakistan

In Pakistan, a petition was filed seeking action against the Pakistani government for not approaching the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to have Siddiqui released from the U.S. Barrister Javed Iqbal Jaffree said the CIA had arrested Siddiqui in Karachi in 2003, and one of her sons was killed during her arrest. On January 21, 2010, he submitted documents allegedly proving the arrest to the Lahore High Court.

After her conviction, thousands of political and social activists and students in Pakistan protested. Echoing her family's comments, and anti-U.S. sentiment, many believe she was picked up in Karachi in 2003, detained at the U.S. Bagram Airbase and tortured, and that the charges against her were fabricated. U.S. officials flatly deny the assertions. Shireen Mazari, editor of the Pakistani right-wing Nation newspaper, wrote that the verdict "did not really surprise anyone familiar with the vindictive mindset of the U.S. public post-9/11".

Taliban threat

According to the Pakistani newspaper The News International, the Taliban has threatened to execute U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl in retaliation for Siddiqui's conviction. They claim members of Siddiqui's family requested their help. A Taliban spokesman said:

We tried our best to make the family understand that our role may create more troubles for the hapless woman, who was already in trouble. On their persistent requests, we have now decided to include Dr Aafia Siddiqui's name in the list of our prisoners in US custody that we delivered to Americans in Afghanistan for swap of their soldier in our custody.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui

Dr. AAFIA SIDIQUI,

Prisoner No. 650
Dr. AAFIA SIDIQUI,

A Pakistani PhD, Having 144 honorary degrees & certificates, In Neurology, From different institutes of the world,
The only neurologist in the world have the honorary Ph.d from Harvard University ,

Hafiz-e-Quraan, Aalima,

Not even a single American matches her qualifications,

Was kidnapped along with her 3 children, By the FBI from Karachi , With the Help of  Govt, of Pakistan.

Alleging Connection with Al-Qaeda,

Now She is in USA prison, Having Lost Memory, Due to Physical, Psychological  & sexual torture, She is Imprisoned with men,

But We, The Muslims are Dead,,,,,