Written by Zahid Jadwat | Edited by Mohammed Arai
Today marks 17 years since the arrest of Pakistani neuroscientist, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.
In March 2003, Dr. Siddiqui and her three children were kidnapped by unknown authorities in Karachi, Pakistan.
Siddiqui’s sister, Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui, spoke to Inayet Wadee on The Alternative View this morning in commemoration of Aafia’s disappearance.
Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui said that it has been three years since she last had contact with Aafia, who is serving a prison sentence in the United States.
On March 31, 2003, it was reported by the Pakistani media that Dr. Siddiqui had been arrested and turned over to representatives of the United States.
There was communication to the mother of Dr. Siddiqui from purported “agencies” that the family members should be quiet if they want to see Siddiqui returned alive.
By 2008, many believed that after five years of being disappeared, Siddiqui and her children were most likely dead as was the case with thousands of other detainees.
However, in February 2010, Siddiqui was tried and convicted in a U.S Federal Court on charges of attempted murder and assaulting U.S servicemen in Ghazni, Afghanistan. The official charges against her were that she assaulted U.S soldiers in Ghazni, Afghanistan, with one of the servicemen’s own rifles, while she was in their custody, waiting to be interrogated by them.
No U.S personnel were hurt, but Siddiqui was shot and suffered serious injuries, including brain damage.
Siddiqui denies these charges.
The forensic and physical evidence denies those charges and, according to several legal observers, the trial of Dr. Siddiqui was littered with many inconsistencies and defects.
Listen to the full discussion here:
Featured image from Google via Al Jazeera.