Dr Aafia Siddiqui

PRISONER 650

BREIF BACKGROUND…..

Dr. Aafia earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from MIT and earned her doctorate from Brandeis University.She was totally dedicated to her children and her academic studies revolved around how children learn. Unfortunately, Dr. Aafia became a victim of domestic violence during her marriage. In 2002, Dr. Aafia’s husband moved the family to Pakistan and soon divorced her while she was pregnant with the couple’s third child. He remarried within weeks of giving her the divorce.Dr. Aafia is now 40 years old, a mother of three children (2 are US citizens), divorced, and is a Pakistani citizen

CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDINGTHE CASE…

In March 2003, Dr. Aafia and her three children, Ahmad (boy), six years old and an American citizen, Maryam (girl), four years old and also an American citizen, and Suleman (boy), six months old, kidnapped by unknown authorities in Karachi, Pakistan. On March 31, 2003 it was reported by the Pakistani media that Dr. Aafia had been arrested and turned over to representatives of the United States. In early April, this was confirmed on NBC Nightly News, among other media outlets. There was communication to the mother of Dr. Aafia from purported “agencies” that the family members should be quiet if they want to see Aafia returned alive. By the year 2008, many believed that after five years of being disappeared Dr. Aafia and her three children were most likely dead.

Then, in July of 2008, the same month Dr. Aafia “appeared” in Ghazni, two events occurred:

British human-rights reporter, Yvonne Ridley and former Bagram detainee and British citizen, Moazem Begg, publicly spoke about a woman in Bagram screaming, a woman whom they named the “Grey Lady of Bagram”

A petition was filed with the Pakistan High Court in Islamabad requesting that the court order the Pakistani government to free Dr. Aafia or to even admit that they were then detaining her.

WHAT HER FAMILY BELIEVE….

That Dr. Aafia was (and is) an innocent person who was abducted for money or based on false allegations or false conclusions derived from an unknown source. That, unfortunately, all evidence required for her defense and establishing legal proof of her detention would require full cooperation by the U.S. and Pakistani governments, and intelligence agencies, a cooperation that seems impossible. That documents incriminating Dr. Aafia are either false documents or produced under torture or threat of harm to her children. That the Afghan police were looking for Dr. Aafia and her son based on a description given by an anonymous tip on the day she was detained in Ghazni.

That Dr. Aafia, who spoke no local language in Ghazni, was dressed so conspicuously in a manner to be easily identified and shot on sight as a (falsely-accused) suicide bomber as a part of someone else’s plan.The forensic and scientific evidence presented during the trial in New York proved that Dr. Aafia could not have committed the crimes for which she was charged, still the jury disregarded the evidence and chose to agree with the prosecution due to fear and prejudice.

In February, 2010, Dr. Aafia was tried and convicted in a US Federal court on charges of attempted murder and assaulting US servicemen in Ghazni, Afghanistan.  The official charges against Dr. Aafia 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 US personnel were hurt but Dr. Aafia was shot and suffered serious injuries including brain damage. Dr Aafia categorically denies these charges.

• There were NO terrorism charges against Dr. Aafia.

• According to several legal observers, the trial of Dr. Aafia was littered with many inconsistencies and defects, chief among them being many rulings by the judge that strongly favored the prosecution and prejudiced the case against the defense. These ranged from allowing much hearsay evidence and jury instructions that favored the prosecution. In addition, Dr. Aafia was not represented by lawyers of her choosing and faced constant innuendos of terrorism when she was not charged with any such offense.

• As a result of Judge Richard Berman’s framing of the case in a negative light, Dr Aafia was convicted despite ALL physical and forensic evidence that showed that she could not have committed the acts she was charged with.

• Dr. Aafia remains imprisoned, now at the notorious Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Carswell, Fort Worth, Texas where she is kept in the Special housing unit (SHU) which is the most severe confinement category. She is still not allowed communication with anyone she trusts, including family members.

Dr Aafia’s Children

What happened to them??

• Dr. Aafia’s oldest son, Ahmed, who is a U.S. citizen by birth, was found in Ghazni, Afghanistan after thinking he was an orphan and, in late 2008, was reunited with Dr. Aafia’s sister in Karachi, Pakistan.

• Dr. Aafia’s daughter, Maryum, also a US citizen by birth, was mysteriously “dropped off” in April 2010 near her aunt’s house in Karachi after being missing for 7 years.  She was traumatized and spoke only American accented English.

• Dr. Aafia’s youngest child, Suleman, a boy who would now be about seven years old, remains missing; and is feared dead

THE EVIDENCE…..

How the department of defence general’s report supports the ‘claims’

made by Dr Aafia’s supporters

• CLAIM 1: The abduction of a mother and her three children/ children used for extortion

• REPORT: The use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences are imminent for him and/or his family:… - pg 36

• CLAIM 2: Long term captivity in secret prisons • REPORT: CIA detainees in Abu Ghraib, known

locally as “Ghost Detainees,” were not accounted for in the detention system. With these detainees unidentified or unaccounted for, detention operations at large were impacted because personnel at the operations level were uncertain how to report or classify detainees. - pg 59

• CLAIM 3: Rape, torture, mental and physical abuse

• REPORT: At the extremes were the death of a detainee in OGA custody, an alleged rape committed by a US translator and observed by a female Soldier, and the alleged sexual assault of a female detainee. - pg 59

• CLAIM 4: Use of elaborate disorientation and false flag techniques

• REPORT: False Flag: Convincing the detainee that individuals from a country other than the United States are interrogating him. - pg 97

• REPORT: …our interviews with DoD personnel assigned to various detention facilities throughout Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrated that they did not have a uniform understanding of what rules governed the involvement of OGAs in the interrogation of DoD detainees. That DoD interrogators improperly impersonated FBI agents and Department of State officers during the interrogation of detainees. - pg 86

We ask people to look into this case themselves, and to do so with an open mind. There is a lot of information

out there on the Internet, and in the media. Many of the stories demonize Aafia, while some raise her to

sainthood. Aafia is neither demon nor saint. Aafia is simply an ordinary mother, daughter and sister trapped

in an extraordinary nightmare

http://aafiamovement.com/