Pakistan/US

Alleged Al-Qaeda operative in court after five-year disappearance

Article published on the 2008-08-06 Latest update 2008-08-06 16:27 TU

Fauzia Siddiqui, sister of Aafia Siddiqui, speaks during a news conference in Karachi
(Photo: Reuters)

A 36-year-old Pakistani mother of three appeared in New York court on Tuesday charged with trying to shoot dead two US soldiers in Afghanistan. Aafia Siddiqui's family have not known where she was for five years. They now say that she has been in secret detention, where she has been raped and tortured.

US officials say that Siddiqui, who studied neuroscience in the US in the 1990s, is an Al-Qaeda operative who was picked up in Afghanistan in possession of bomb-making instructions and suspicous liquids.

She was also named in a 2004 US list of suspected Al-Qaeda members.

On 18 July she is alleged to have seized a US serviceman's rifle during interrogation and tried to shoot dead two US army officers, firing at least two shots before an interpreter wrestled the rifle from her.

Her lawyers argue that she is too small and too intelligent to have tried to fight with six soldiers.

Siddiqui, who is suffering from a bullet wound apparently sustained during the incident, had to be helped into the courtroom and is reported to have appeared bewildered when read the murder and assault charges.

She faces 20 years in prison on each charge.

"Aafia was tortured for five years until, one day, US authorities announce that they have found her in Afghanistan," said her sister Fauzia Siddiqui at a press conference in the Pakistani city of Karachi.

"She was badly tortured and raped by officials in Bagram airbase [in Afghanistan]," says Amina Masood, who campaigns on behalf of the hundreds of Pakistanis believed to be held in secret detention.

Masood told RFI that Siddiqui may have been taken to the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

"People who were released from Guantanamo they are also reporting that they heard a woman’s voice and screams of a woman," she says.

Masood also claims that Pakistani authorities intimidated her relations.

"The family was told again and again to keep their mouths shut because, if they want life for their daughter and grandchildren, they must keep quiet."

Siddiqui, who returned to Pakistan from the US after divorcing her husband, is a devout Muslim. Her lawyers say that she helped raise funds for charities that Washington claims fund Al-Qaeda.

She will attend a bail hearing on Monday and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for 19 August.