Dr. Aafia Siddiqui (Urdu: عافيہ صديقی) (born March 2, 1972) is an MIT and Brandeis alumna, originally from Karachi, Pakistan. She disappeared in 2003, with alternate theories suggesting she went underground to aid militant groups, and others suggesting she was kidnapped by American authorities for interrogation.
She was the first, and to date only, female listed among the "Most Wanted" list for relation to terrorism. In 2008, she was formally declared "captured" by the United States, but allegedly shot at soldiers guarding her in custody; she is currently on trial in New York for the attempted murder of her captors.
Early life & education
Aafia Siddiqui was on of three siblings born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. Her father, Muhammad Siddiqui, was a doctor trained in England and her mother, Ismet, was a homemaker. Her brother went on to become an architect and now lives with her wife, a pediatrician, in Houston, Texas. Her sister, Fowzia Siddiqui, is a Harvard-trained neurologist and worked in Sinai hospital, Baltimore before she went back to Pakistan.
She moved to Texas, United States in 1990, and after attending University of Houston for her freshman year, she joined to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her sophomore year.
During her years at MIT, she was regarded as religious by her colleagues. She apparently joined an association of Muslim students and wrote three guides for teaching Islam to those, who wanted to know. In 1992, as a sophomore at MIT, 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 career, she lived in McCormick Hall and worked at the MIT libraries graduated from MIT in 1995. A year after she graduated, Siddiqui wrote an article for the MIT Information Systems newsletter about File Transfer Protocol and the then-emerging World Wide Web.
Later on, she went to Brandeis University as graduate student in cognitive neuroscience and co-authored several biology journal articles. She also finished her dissertation for Ph.D but it remains unclear whether she received a doctorate.
In 1999, while living in Boston, Siddiqui and Khan founded the nonprofit Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching. She attended a mosque outside of the city, where she stored Islamic literature that she distributed. She went on to graduate study in neuroscience at Brandeis University, receiving a Ph.D. degree in 2001 for her dissertation, titled "Separating the Components of Imitation."
Siddiqui was married to anesthesiologist Muhammad Amjad Khan, until their divorce in October 2002. They have 3 children: Ahmed (b. 1996), Maryam (b. 1998), and Suleman (b. 2002). At the time of her disappearence, she was working at the Aga Khan University in Karachi. She had, however, expressed interest in working in the United States in an e-mail addressed to her professor, Robert Sekuler, at Brandeis University, citing lack of options in Karachi for women of her academic background. A few days later, she disappeared. Siddiqui is reported by the U.S. government to be now married to Ammar al-Baluchi.
2003–08
In March 2003 the FBI issued a global alert for Siddiqui and her by now ex-husband, Amjad Khan. Siddiqui's whereabouts and activities from 2003 to 2008 are a matter of dispute. According to Yvonne Ridley and Siddiqui's family, Siddiqui spent those years at Bagram as Prisoner 650, known as the "Grey Lady of Bagram." According to the U.S. and her ex-husband Amjad Khan, Siddiqui was at large, working on behalf of Al Qaeda; in May 2004 the U.S. listed her among the seven "most wanted" al-Qaeda fugitives.
Arrest
In July 2008 Siddiqui was arrested by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. She was charged in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with assaulting, and attempting to kill, United States personnel while in Afghanistan as well as with having connections with al-Qaeda. The details of the arrest are disputed.
Trial
Aafia is on trial for allegedly shooting at U.S. officers in Ghazni, Afghanistan. It is worth noting, she is not on trial for terrorism. Aafia's trial has been subject to numerous delays, the longest, of six months, due to 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. Aafia faces up to 20 years in prison on the attempted murder charges and life in prison on the firearms charge.
The Pakistani government confirmed that they have paid $2 million to pay for acquiring the services of the three lawyers appointed to defend Aafia during her trial, which started January 19, 2010, in New York.
In Pakistan, a petition has been filed seeking action against the Pakistani government for not approaching the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to have Aafia released from the U.S. Barrister Javed Iqbal Jaffree said that the CIA had arrested Aafia from Karachi in 2003 and one of her sons was killed during her arrest. On January 21, 2010, he submitted documents as proof of the arrest of Aafia from Pakistan to the Lahore High Court. The hearing of the petition is fixed for January 25, 2010.
Current (since January 2010)
Aafia's trial began on Tuesday, January 19, 2010, in New York. Prior to the trial, Aafia had declared that she would boycott the trial in January 2010, because she considers herself innocent of all charges, which she maintains she can prove, but refuses to do that in court. On January 11, Aafia told a judge that wanted to fire her legal team and complained about "injustices in this court." Jury selection was scheduled for Wednesday, January 13, in federal court of Manhattan. It was reported on January 14, 2010, that Aafia told, addressing the Manhattan federal judge Richard Berman, that she would not cooperate with her attorneys—repeatedly denouncing the proceeding. She said she did not want Jews on the jury and demanded that all prospective jurors be DNA-tested and excluded from the jury at her trial in New York; "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." She further stated lack of trust in the judge and that she was "boycotting the trial (...) there are too many injustices. I’m out of this." Following that outburst she was removed from the court, although the judge asserted she would be allowed back, as she is entitled to be present at her trial. A jury selection was completed on Thursday and opening arguments commenced Tuesday, January 19. On her comments regarding the jury selection, Aafia's legal team stated that Aafia's incarceration had damaged her mind.
Trial begins January 19, 2010
The attempted-murder trial of Aafia Siddiqui began Tuesday, January 19, 2010, in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Prior to the jury entering the courtroom, Aafia turned to onlookers and told them that she had information about domestic terror plots, would not work with her lawyers and was there against her will saying; "This isn't a fair court, (...) Why do I have to be here? (...) There are many different versions of how this happened" referring to the alleged shooting. She also claimed to have knowledge of 9/11; "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. I’m not lying, I swear!" she reasserted the need for her to meet the president because "It's important!" (...) "The President has to talk to me and this is the last opportunity I have once I'm sentenced" (...) "God, it's important, and please don't ignore me for the sake of God and this beautiful country."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Dabbs told jurors Aafia was taken into custody by Afghan police in July because she was carrying containers of unidentified chemicals and notes referring to mass-casualty attacks and New York landmarks such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Three government witnesses testified on the opening day of the trial, which is expected to last two weeks; Army Capt. Robert Snyder, John Threadcraft, a former army officer and John Jefferson, an FBI agent. Both were stationed in Afghanistan at the time of the alleged assault and murder attempt.
During the trial, while Snyder testified that Aafia had been arrested with a handwritten note outlining plans to attack the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge and Wall Street, Aafia disrupted the proceedings with a loud outburst aimed at Snyder, after, which she proclaimed her innocence stating; "Since I'll never get a chance to speak, 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, Aafia was once again removed from the court. She had stayed mostly silent during the opening statements for 90 minutes. The courtcase continued with Snyder's testimony.
While ordering the removal of Aafia, judge Berman said, she could watch the proceedings on closed-circuit television in an adjacent holding cell, a proposal, Aafia rejected. A request by the defence lawyers to declare a mistrial was turned down by the judge.
The statements Aafia allegedly made in the Afghan police station in Ghazni, was also mentioned by Dabbs, but the defence highlighted the absence of any forensic evidence. During the cross-examination, the defence attorneys, Charles Swift and Linda Moreno, cited the contradiction in the versions of the alleged Ghazni incident given by the three witnesses. The witness testimonies ranged the number of people present at the police outpost to the distance of the barrel of the gun from the curtain. Another issue raised was the sloppy handling of evidence and the alleged weapon.
A large number of Aafia's supporters were present in the court and two other rooms in the building, where they watched the proceedings via closed circuit television. Outside the court, dozens of people, led by Shahid Comrade of the Pakistan-USA Freedom Forum, staged a rally to demand justice for Aafia and her release.
The trial continued on Wednesday, January 20, 2010, with testimonies of FBI agent John Jefferson and Ahmed Gul, an army interpretor, who recounted how they allegedly struggled with her in the Afghan police station. Following Tuesday's outbursts, judge Berman warned Aafia stating that no more outbursts would be tolerated, to which Aafia responded in the affirmative saying; "I’m just going to be quiet, but it doesn’t mean I agree."
The trial took an unusual turn with an FBI official asserting that the finger prints taken from the rifle, which was purportedly used by Aafia to shoot at the U.S. interrogators, did not match hers. Another event complicated the case further, when a witness', Masood Haider Gul, testimony appeared different from the one given by U.S. Captain Schnieder earlier. The defence has denied all charges and have earlier said; "The soldiers had given different versions of where she was when the M-4 was allegedly fired and how many shots were fired."
