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Government vows good defence for Aafia Siddiqui
ISLAMABAD: The government assured the National Assembly on Thursday it would put up a “good defence” for Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui even at the next stage of her trial by a US court where a jury last week found her guilty of attempting to murder American soldiers in Afghanistan.
“Justice is not being done (to her),” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Malik Amad Ahmed Khan said at the end of a one-sided debate in apparently Islamabad’s strongest comment to date in what he called “a common cause” against the Feb 3 conviction in New York.
He complained of that a Pakistani woman had been “maltreated” and said: “We all agree that somehow she should be brought back (to Pakistan).”
Aafia Siddiqui: Justice was not served
By Moin Ansari
The Terror-Industrial Complex
The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe.
The bizarre story surrounding Siddiqui, 37, who received an undergraduate degree from MIT and a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University, often defies belief. Siddiqui, who could spend 50 years in prison on seven charges when she is sentenced in May, was by her own account abducted in 2003 from her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan, with her three children—two of whom remain missing—and spirited to a secret U.S. prison where she was allegedly tortured and mistreated for five years. The American government has no comment, either about the alleged clandestine detention or the missing children.
Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized by American Injustice
by Stephen Lendman
On February 3, a Department of Justice press release headlined “Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court of Attempting to Murder US Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges.”
At her scheduled May 6 sentencing, she “faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the attempted murder and armed assault charges; life in prison on the firearms charge; and eight years in prison on each of the remaining assault charges. SIDDIQUI faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on the firearms charge.”
On February 3, New York Times writer CJ Hughes headlined: “Pakistani Scientist Found Guilty of Shootings,” convicting her on all seven counts, including attempted murder – “capping a trial that drew notice for its terrorist implications as well as its theatrics,” but omitting convincing evidence of Siddiqui’s innocence.
The Bizarre Terror Conviction of Pakistani Scientist Aafia Siddiqui, And Why There’s a Good Chance She’s Innocent
JUAN GONZALEZ: We begin today with one of the most baffling cases in the so-called war on terror, the story of thirty-seven-year-old Aafia Siddiqui.
On Wednesday, a New York court convicted the American-educated Pakistani neuroscientist of attempted murder for shooting at US soldiers and FBI agents while detained in Afghanistan in 2008.
Back in 2003, Aafia Siddiqui was wanted by law enforcement and the FBI and suspected of links to al-Qaeda leadership. But the MIT-trained scientist had mysteriously disappeared along with her three children, two of whom are U.S. citizens. She reappeared five years later in Afghanistan with her oldest son and was arrested on suspicion of carrying chemicals and notes referring to “mass-casualty attacks” in New York.
Pakistan Gags Aafia Siddiqui Family
After the guilty verdict against Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman charged with attempted murder in the U.S, was announced, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, her attorney, told reporters outside the Federal Court House in New York Wednesday that government of Pakistan had put a gag order on Dr. Siddiqui’s family as a pre-condition to release her son, Ahmed.
Despite all the bravado of Pakistani officials implying that Dr. Siddiqui would be released, this verdict ensures that she will spend a few more decades in U.S. custody.
Sharp told reporters that her client, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was picked up by ISI on March 29, 2003 in Karachi. They arrived in two black cars and placed Siddiqui in one car and the children in another car.
Gross miscarriage of justice: Aafia Siddiqui Innocent victim of prejudice
Aafia Siddiqui has been a victim from that fateful moment when she was kidnapped, and sent to Afghanistan–where she was brutally tortured. Her family also faced horrendous pain. A prejudiced jury has now pronounced her guilt–guilty of a crime of shooting at a marine–when there were no bullet holes, and no fingerpring on the gun–the frail MIT graduate has been pronounced guilty of attacking several armed males, somehow snatching their gun and then shooting at them–when she had no clue about guns.
Hopefully she will will the case on appeal.
NEW YORK: Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist, was found guilty of attempted murder charges on all seven counts listed in the complaint against her. She was tried on charges of trying to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan on July 28, 2008.
Defence highlights lack of coherence in testimony against Dr Aafia Siddiqui
NEW YORK: The trial of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani scientist charged with shooting at her US interrogators in Afghanistan, moved into the final stage on Monday, with defence lawyers highlighting in their final arguments the lack of coherence in the accounts by prosecution witnesses. After both the prosecution and defence delivered their closing arguments, the 16-member jury went into deliberations to reach a verdict.
According to experts, the verdict could come early next week, although there is no fixed timeframe for the judgement.
The defence’s main argument was that evidence by the prosecution witnesses lacked coherence and their varying accounts were, in fact, contradictory – not only to each other but to themselves. Besides, the defence argued emphatically that there was no physical evidence produced by the prosecution to substantiate charges against Dr Aafia. The prosecution, they stated, tried to create an “atmosphere of fear” by producing handwritten notes by Aafia.
US frame-up of Aafia Siddiqui begins to unravel
Pakistani victim of rendition and torture
By Ali Ismail
1 February 2010
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.
Jury To Decide Fate of Aafia Siddiqui
As closing remarks came to an end and jury deliberations began in the trial of female Pakistani, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who faces 7 count assault and attempted murder charges in a New York Court room, for an alleged shooting incident in Ghazni Afghanistan, many spectators are wondering if it is possible for her to have a fair trial in post 9-11 America.
Although she is not charged with terrorism, the Prosecution was able to make that claim the underpinning of its entire case, due in large part to Judge Richard Berman’s decision to allow into evidence documents found in Dr. Siddiqui’s possession which include handwritten notes about “how to make a dirty bomb” and plans to cause “mass casualties” in the United States. The defense Attorney, Charles Swift said it was a legally “flawed” decision and will be the basis on an appeal if Dr. Siddiqui is not acquitted.
Aafia Siddiqui Trial: Jury Can Start Deliberation On Monday
Jury in Dr. Aafia Siddiqui trial is likely to begin deliberations Monday afternoon after prosecution and defense attorneys make closing statements.
In a taped video deposition presented by defense on Friday, Bashir, an Afghan police officer testified that he saw an American officer walk behind the curtain just before he heard gun shots, and that he never saw Dr. Siddiqui pick up a gun. Bashir was the last defense witness.
Earlier in the day Judge Richard Berman allowed prosecution to produce additional witnesses to rebut claims made by the defense witnesses and experts.
