Aafia’s sentencing–> A question mark over USA justice system; Shame for Pakistan Army and Government

Dr. Aafia Siddiqi, mother of three children who was kidnapped from Karachi in 2003 by USA and Pakistani agencies, is sentenced for 86 years.

The charge is that this 5 feet weak woman  attacked well trained US marines by snatching their rifles and in the process no one was shot except Aafia herself.

All the principles of justice like innocent till proven guilty, fair defense and unbiased decision making were destroyed in the case by US judge , members of jury and the US government. They were well supported by Pakistani government and agencies in the fake trial.

The decision leaves a question mark on the justice system of USA and its effectiveness to protect human rights. USA civil society needs to think over it if they have some conscience as this can happen with them too.

This decision is a Shame for Pakistan Army, Agencies and Government especially the Pentagon Pet Dictator Musharraf and his junta. They not only sold Aafia but hundreds like her and sold their motherland to their imperialist masters for serving their greed and lust for power.

May Allah give justice to Aafia and bring to justice those who were involved in doing this with her.

Read also : Aafia Siddiqui Indictment

Support Appeal For Dr. Afia Siddiqi(Prisoner 650 Bagram Jail)–>AHRC

DNA test proves teenage girl as Aafia’s daughter

The mystery sourrounding the teenage girl found in front of Dr. Fauzia’s house is finally resolved. After mixed reports it is finally confirmed by the family and government
that the girl is really Aafia’s daughter Maryam.

Congrats to the family and hopefully Aafia’s youngest son Suleman will also be handed over. It is also reported that Maryam was held in Bagram jail which also confirms that Aafia wasn’t arrested in Ghazni alone or some say with her son. In fact she was abducted with her 3 children (2 boys and 1 girl).

DNA test proves teenage girl as Aafia’s daughter

Source: http://www.awamimarkaz.com/2010/04/dna-test-proves-teenage-girl-as-aafia’s-daughter/

The Eastern Tribune
Islamabad: According to initial report of DNA test, the teenage girl, brought by unidentified men to home of Dr Fauzia Siddiqui, has been declared as daughter of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui, sister of Dr Aafia Siddiqui visited the Interior Ministry with 12 years old Maryam on Saturday and held a meeting with Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

Talking to media after holding the meeting, the Interior Minister said that Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani wanted to make the announcement himself but he asked him to announce this.

Rehman Malik said that the DNA Report has proved that 12 years old Maryam is daughter of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, adding the girl only speak English.

Responding to a question, the Interior Minister said that the government is taking all possible measures for the return of Dr. Aafia, saying the Prime Minister during his stay in the United States would strongly raise the issue of release of Dr. Aafia with the leadership of the United States.

The Minister on the occasion congratulated the entire nation and the family of Dr. Aafia.

Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui while talking to media said that the DNA test has proved that the girl is daughter of Dr. Aafia and praised the efforts of the government regarding repatriation of Dr. Aafia and her children and specially mentioned efforts of the Interior Minister.

On current visit of the Prime Minister to the United States, Dr. Fauzia expressed her hope that he (Gilani) would raise the issue regarding release of Dr. Aafia with US Leadership.

Terming the visit of Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, a key factor in making the efforts of the government and the Interior Minister productive, she said that the rehabilitation of Maryam would be started soon.

Imran asks three questions from USA and Pakistan about Dr. Aafia

Source : http://insaf.pk/News/tabid/60/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/3474/Imran-asks-three-questions-from-USA-and-Pakistan-about-Dr-Aafia.aspx

By Hammad Cheema

Imran Khan, Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), has expressed his disgust and anger over the way the whole Dr Aafia Siddiqui case has ended in what is clearly a travesty of justice. He has demanded three things from the State of Pakistan and the USA:

First: the Pakistani people have a right to know how Dr Aafia Siddiqui, with three minor children, landed up in Bagram Base. He demanded that the Pakistan government needs to answer this clearly as does the US. Did the Pakistani authorities covertly hand over Dr Siddiqui with her young children to the Americans? Or did the Americans kidnap her in Pakistan and successfully take her out into Afghanistan? What has been the fate of her children, since two of them are still missing?

How could a frail woman manage to attack US soldiers who surrounded her? Did she suddenly acquire superwoman or bionic abilities?

Second: Why has the Pakistan government not taken proper action to ensure her return to Pakistan? Are they not aware of the fact that apart from the injustice and abuse of a Pakistani woman, the injustice meted out to Dr Aafia is going to add to the difficulties of the Pakistani military’s fight in the tribal belt as well as increasing anti-Americanism and extremism? For Pakistan this will create more space for militancy.

Just as the Lal Masjid episode was a watershed for a qualitative change in the rising tide of militancy and extremism, so the Dr Aafia sentencing will become another watershed in this direction of creating more space for extremism and militancy.

Three: Who aided and abetted the Americans in Pakistan? The Pakistan government must not only expose those who aided and abetted the kidnapping of Dr Aafia, but must also mete out exemplary punishment to them. In 2003 when Imran Khan contacted Dr Aafia’s mother in order to give a statement in Aafia’s support, her mother was terrified and told Imran that she had been warned that if any such statements were made, Dr Aafia would be killed.

It is a national shame that the state of Pakistan, instead of protecting its citizens, has been aiding and abetting in their disappearances, their torture and their abuse. It is time to put an end to all this lest the nation take things into their own hands.

Special Report: Dr. A’fia Siddiqui: VICTIM OF BUSH RAPE AND KIDNAP SQUAD–>By Gordon Duff

Special Report: Dr. A’fia Siddiqui: VICTIM OF BUSH RAPE AND KIDNAP SQUAD

Source : http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=62041

By Gordon Duff

January 10, 2010

WOMAN KIDNAPPED, RAPED AND HELD 5 YEARS IN SECRET BAGRAM PRISON NOW

FACING TRIAL FOR ATTACKING CIA TORTURE SQUAD

By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Next week, a mother of 3 children is facing trial for, supposedly, wrestling an M-16 away from a CIA torture squad and trying to kill them.  How did the CIA get her?  They bought her.  She was sold to them by a corrupt official in Pakistan as a “terror suspect,” a common problem and a well known ploy in the George W. Bush phony war on terrorism.

Was she a terrorist?  There is no evidence of this, even after years of torture.  The only serious crimes we find her guilty of is being a house wife, mother and Islamic and, I forgot, having an education.  Her victims?  Crippled and 100 pounds, she took on a room full of former Navy Seals, Special Forces and “private interrogators.”  The obvious truth, of course:  the charges are a fabrication by a pack of cowards and liars.

What do we really know?  We really don’t know anything at all.  Nobody has any evidence that this woman, a scientist educated in the US did anything at all.  There is talk, empty talk about her sending money to charities that might be tied to terrorism.  The amount of money is about 2% of a typical payment from one of the Saudi royals that have funded terrorists and suicide bombers for years, but none of them are kidnapped, raped, shot or beaten.

They have oil.

The case against her is made, at length, in the Wikipedia article about her.  It is a good read.  It makes me proud to be an American.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aafia_Siddiqui

What we see exposed, however, is the slave trade in “terror suspects” created during the Bush Administration fear frenzy when intelligence agencies around the world started dragging innocent people off the streets and selling them to the US for millions of dollars to supply the needed number of “terrorist arrests” to justify wild claims of a successful war on terror continually being made by Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the rest of the gang.

The crime is an amusing one.  A woman who was either just arrested or had been in custody for 5 years, depending on which of her captors you listen to.  This should seem like an interesting read:

“On 4 August 2008, shorty after press rumors suggested that Siddiqui had been in Bagram for the last five years, the US government announced that Aafia Siddiqui was arrested on charges related to her attempted murder and assault of United States officers and employees in Afghanistan

The US claims that Siddiqui was not captured in March 2003, that she was arrested on July 17, 2008 outside the home of the Governor of Ghazni.[24][25] The US account of the July 18, 2008 shooting is that FBI agents, interpreters, and several GIs entered arrived at the Afghan facility where Siddiqui was being held. The personnel entered a second floor meeting room—unaware that Siddiqui was being held there, unsecured, behind a curtain.

The Warrant Officer took a seat and placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor next to the curtain .[26] According to the US account the GIs set down their weapons, whereupon Siddiqui burst from behind a curtain, grabbed an M-4, and opened fire. One interpreter who was accompanying the officers seized the firearm from her.

US officials claim they have no idea where Siddiqui has been in the five years since she was captured on March 17, 2003.

Siddiqui arrived in New York on August 4, 2008, and was presented before a United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Siddiqui refused to accept the charges.[27][28][29] Siddiqui’s lawyer stated that no one can believe the FBI story and that Siddiqui had actually been captured in Karachi, Pakistan along with three of her children.

On August 8, 2008 the Daily Times reported that Aafia was captured in Ghazni with her eldest son, Muhammad Ahmed.[31] The report stated that documents existed that confirmed that Affia and her children had been captured in March 2003.”

REAL ISSUES FOR DECENT AMERICANS TO CARE ABOUT

This woman and her three children were kidnapped, and illegally held for 5 years under the most brutal conditions imaginable without any legal reason.  She had been accused of no crime.  After years of imprisonment, rape and torture, she is finally arrested for attacking those who tortured her.

REALITY CHECK:  TIME TO STAND PROUD IN OUR WAR ON TERROR

After 5 years of imprisonment, Dr. Siddiqui was a total physical wreck, barely able to walk, and seriously disabled from hundreds of torture sessions.  Yet she is accused of overpowering several Navy Seals and US Army Special Forces unarmed combat specialists, seizing a weapon and nearly killing all of them, this at a weight of 100 pounds.

“Nearly killing” is a bit of an overstatement.  In fact, nobody was injured at all.  The more we investigate this, the more this sounds like an outlandish war story cooked up to file for PTSD.

She faces 20 years for this crime and only this crime.  Since when was it a crime to attempt to escape from illegal imprisonment?  Any American who is illegally detained and imprisoned without due process can’t be charged with a crime for resisting torture or imprisonment.

Americans consider such actions their patriotic duty.

PHOTO STUDY OF OUR SECURITY FORCES IN KABUL PROVING THEIR CHARACTER AND DISCIPLINE:

ONE OF THE GREAT SUCCESSES OF THE WAR ON TERROR

Attorney General John Ashcroft considered the kidnapping of this woman, along with her 3 children, one of the great victories of the War on Terror.  However, after 5 years of interrogation and 7 years of confinement, no charges could ever be filed against her other than trying to single handledly crawl out of her death bed and dispatch a room full of “drug store” Rambo types.

Ashcroft has many success in his career.  He is the only person in American history to have lost a seat in the US Senate to a dead man.

In an unpublicized but much more interesting case, Ashcroft and his band of merry US Attorneys, in their attempt to rack up arrests for terrorism without doing adequate homework actually managed to drag in an entire CIA intelligence organization which had, until broken up by John Ashcroft and gang, penetrated the highest levels of Al Qaeda.

Not much more can be said, but several top CIA operatives now have the embarassing history of having been arrested for terrorist related charges.  Ashcroft and later Gonzales have, through incompetence, done more to cripple US intelligence efforts than any group other than the Mossad.

Even the “outing” of CIA nuclear proliferation specialist Valerie Plame, believed to be responsible for North Korea getting nuclear weapons, involved much less utter bungling and inanity.

OBAMA, HOLDER AND A BUSH ERA “WITCH HUNT”

Nearly every legal expert in the world, including almost universal outrage among the legal community is Israel, has called this one of the most insane acts of abuse of any country that claims to have a functioning legal system and representative form of government.

Even the alleged “suspicious acts,” which are, by the way, buying totally legal and harmless gun accessories, is in itself totally insane.  Am I going to have to register that dangerous combat assault flashlight I keep by my desk for when I drop my reading glasses?

Any idiot who goes to gun shows knows that the weapons that small children carry around in Afghanistan are ten times better than the things Americans can get from sporting good stores or thru mail order.  Every time an American collector sees a photograph of a Taliban member who owns 2 goats carrying an AK rifle with forged receiver and top quality ART sniper scope, something worth $3000 or more in the US, the insanity of purchasing 3rd rate clone parts in the US to ship to a country that has enough assault rifles to supply the world for centuries begins to sink in.

Where is the NRA and ACLU?

AMERICAN ANTI-GUN CRAZIES

Even if we weren’t dealing with a kidnapped and raped mother facing trial for, not terrorism but for showing super human powers and violating, not terrorist laws but, moreover, the laws of physics themselves, I can’t help but come back to an old theme.

If I buy a semi-automatic shotgun and the Black Helicopter Secret Police raid my home, is a US Attorney going to call it a “ultra-high powered special operations assault mid caliber artillery piece?”

Is my Ruger 10/22, purchased for plinking tin cans going to be an assault machine gun?

However, when Dr. Hasan went on his terror campaign at Ft. Hood using an FN Herstal 5.7mm 20 round assault pistol with classified ammunition available ONLY to our special operations troops, ammo specially designed for penetrating body armor, newspapers, TV, everyone was silent.  We can be so very “uncurious” when we need to.  I am still waiting to find out why we are concealing this.

WHO IS THE VICTIM HERE?

These things are obvious.  We paid criminals to kidnap an innocent person for cheap public relations gain, elections were coming up and our War on Terror was looking as phony as, well as phony as it actually is.

Then, after years of rape and torture, this frail Islamic woman tries to fight back, or so we are told, told by people who imprison innocent people, rape and torture.  Are these witnesses we would have in an American court?

She already considers herself dead.  What human can survive such brutality, injustice, humiliation and abuse.  Who are the real victims here?

Americans who know nothing of the trial, American who sat silently while this went on, Americans who thought their cowardice was buying them “safety.”

We are the victims because we are despised around the world for brutality and injustice we know nothing of because we gave up our free press and our love of honor for, well, I don’t actually know.  A picture of Sarah Palin comes to mind, her or “Joe the Plumber.”

and so it goes

American Jury Decides Against Aafia Over Baseless Charges–>Hypocrisy of so called civilized country exposed

The decision by American court against Dr. Aafia Siddiqi on baseless charges may not harm Aafia much as she has gone through worse already. But the case has really exposed the biased approach and hypocrisy of a so  called free country and its system of justice.

The court didn’t take into account Aafia’s abduction in 2003 and didn’t bother to look at the main accusation of her affiliation with Al-Qaida because FBI and USA army didn’t have any proofs against her in those charges.

The proofs fabricated to frame her on the charges of American soldiers had many flaws.

–          No bullet holes of M-4 rifle were found on the wall of interrogation cell.

–          No finger prints of Aafia were found on the rifle.

–          Witness accounts against her were contradicting and were clearly fabricated.

Apart from USA government and court, Pakistan security institutions and government deliberately destroyed the case by appointing a team of lawyers against the will of Aafia . The purpose of appointing those lawyers was to harm the case and the lawyers were clearly following the lines of Pakistani and American agencies.

American citizens need to think if this has happened to Aafia in their courts, it can happen to them as well. They can be framed and punished as well.

In simple words I can say:

SO CALLED NATIONAL SECURITY WON AGAINST JUSTICE!!!

Aafia turns out to be a credible witness–>DAWN

Source : http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/12-aafia-turns-out-to-be-a-credible-witness-010–bi-10

By Masood Haider

NEW YORK: Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui took the stand on Thursday afternoon to testify in a court where she is facing the charge of trying to kill American servicemen while in custody at Ghazni (Afghanistan).

While denying the attempted murder charge, Dr Aafia told the court that she was concerned she was going to be transferred to a ‘secret’ prison by the Americans and was trying to slip out of the room when she was shot.

“I’m telling you what I know,” she said in response to a question by Assistant US Attorney Jenna M. Dabbs.

“I walked towards the curtain. I was shot and I was shot again. I fainted.” Much to the surprise of her defence team, Dr Aafia turned to be a ‘credible witness’.

She was allowed to take the stand after Judge Richard Berman issued her caveats making her aware of the pitfalls and the dangers of such a move. Her defence team was literally scared that she could turn out to be her own worst enemy given her past record of outbursts.

She had been thrown out of the court several times after being admonished by the judge not to speak out of turn.

But on Thursday she surprised them all and remained calm and composed.Dr Aafia again denied picking up an M4 rifle and taking a shot at American soldiers and instead maintained that she was scared and wanted to run away as she heard conversations from behind the curtain during her incarceration at Ghazni.

She said as she peeked out of the curtain she was shot and injured. She also accused the FBI agents who questioned her time and again of threatening to hurt her children in order to scare her.

At one point she became so chatty that she was asked by the judge to just answer the question instead of elaborating them.

She also denied prosectuion’s claim that she was trained in rifle shooting, saying: “I took physical training but not to shoot a rifle.”

She said she was shot two or three times by one person in the room and then shot by someone else. She also said she did not believe any US soldier in the room would be irresponsible enough to leave his weapon lying around.

A group of FBI agents and US soldiers had travelled to Ghazni to interview Dr Aafia after she was allegedly found with materials that included hand-written notes referring to a “mass casualty attack” in the US and listed several landmark locations, including the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, prosecutors have said.

Witnesses’ accounts differ at Dr. Aafia’s trial –>DAWN

Source : http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/14-witnesses-accounts-differ-at-dr-aafia-trial-zj-01

KARACHI: The trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui has taken a bizarre turn when a witness’s testimony came out to be different from the one given by American official Captain Schnieder, reports DawnNews.

Furthermore, an FBI agent testified that they did not find Dr. Aafia’s finger-prints on the rifle.

The US federal court in Manhattan heard Aafia Siddiqui and 5 other witnesses. Dr. Aafia told the court that she is being misrepresented by the prosecutor’s statement regarding the things she has said about America, that only negative thoughts are being portrayed.

According to DawnNews’ correspondent in New York, Masood Haider, the court heard witnesses who saw the incident including an Afghan interpreter, Ahmed Gul who became a green card holder in 2009 and was processed by the American government and now lives in New York. Abdul previously claimed that he saw Dr. Aafia shoot at the US soldiers.

There was also a cross examination of witnesses and forensic experts and FBI. On the second day of the trial, four witnesses came under cross-questioning.

In the previous hearing, Captain Schnieder told the court that Dr. Aafia shot at him while she was on her knees.

But on the second day of the trial, Ahmed Gul told the court that Dr. Aafia was standing when she fired the gun and the gun was pointing at some other official.

The Afghan interpreter also told the court that he has been granted a green card and has been settled in America by the officials who brought him to testify in the trial.

During the hearing, one FBI official told the court that they found Dr. Aafia’s fingerprints on the documents but not on the gun, Masood Haider said.

Dr Aafia’s kidnapping FIR lodged–>The News

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=26092

By Salis bin Perwaiz

KARACHI: The Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station here has registered an FIR for the kidnapping of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, along with her three minor children. The FIR was lodged against personnel of an unidentified law-enforcement agency, and a case was filed on the complaint of Dr Aafia’s sister.

Gulshan-e-Iqbal SHO Rustam Nawaz said they received a complaint from Dr Fauzia Siddiqui in which she stated that her younger sister, Dr Aafia Siddiqui, resident of House No: 140E, Block 7, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, on March 30, 2003, left the house for the Karachi airport, along with her three children, to board a flight to Rawalpindi. She, along with her three children, was kidnapped by a member of an unidentified law-enforcement agency en route to the airport.

SHO Nawaz said the complainant further alleged she had also submitted many applications to police stations concerned as well as government officials, including ministers, but to date no action had taken place nor was it clear which agency had kidnapped her younger sister. Furthermore, subsequently it came to their knowledge that Dr Aafia Siddiqui is in an American jail, facing trial.

SHO Nawaz said the application was forwarded to his seniors and after getting their approval, FIR-773/09 was lodged for the kidnapping of Dr Aafia Siddiqui along with her three minor children against unidentified persons or LEA personnel.

Imran Khan on Dr. Aafia an interview with Yvonne Ridley

 

Source : http://freeaafia.org/

PAK Gov. ordered to secure the release of Dr. Aafia

Saturday, 24 October 2009 11:22

The Pakistan Government has been ordered to secure the release of scientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui from US custody.
Originally published in Pakistan, By Yvonne Ridley

The Islamabad High Court made the ground-breaking directive in a move welcomed by her family, supporters and anyone who wants to see justice delivered to a woman who has been trapped in a hellish existence for the last six years.

However, not everyone is happy that Justice Raja Saeed Akram has ordered the government to work towards bringing Aafia home.

As I discovered a few days ago during a visit to Pakistan it seems her ex-husband Dr. Muhammad Amjad Khan has been briefing against the mother of his three children.

In an exclusive interview given to Karachi journalist Aroosa Masroor at The News, Dr. Khan said that most claims about Aafia, propagated to garner public support and sympathy, are untrue.

Why he chose to break his silence after six years is not immediately obvious … unless you buy in to the crazy theory that he was instrumental in his wife’s arrest and disappearance.

Of course it would be outrageous and defamatory to suggest Dr. Khan was involved and I certainly have no evidence to suggest otherwise, but what intrigues me is why this man would want to try and deliberately mislead the public as he did in his first on-the-record interview.

I am not sure what are his motives but, in a conference I gave at the Islamabad National Press Club this week I threw out a challenge to Dr. Khan to either put up or shut up.

In his February 18 interview he said: “Aafia’s release cannot be secured by propagating stories based on falsehood and deception,” and then he went on to tell a lie so blatant that I can no longer remain silent, and here’s why.

He reckons that the iconic photograph of Aafia, slumped to one side with eyes closed, was a stunted up picture taken by her sister Fowzia years ago. He even goes into fine detail explaining her injured mouth, saying that Aafia’s upper lip was cut by a milk bottle in an accident.

Fowzia, he says, warned him at the time that if he tried to divorce Aafia, she would use the picture against him alleging him to be an abusive husband. “It was made to appear in the picture that Aafia was badly injured. Today, the same picture is being circulated in the media to claim that Aafia was tortured for years in Bagram,” he states in The News interview.

There’s no hesitation in this statement – he is very clear about the origins of ‘that picture’. Well I am also clear about the origins of ‘that picture’ because it was taken by the office of the Governor of Ghazni in July 2008.

How do I know? Because the governor told me so himself, and then showed me copies of that and other pictures taken of Aafia on the day of her arrest that he stored on his personal laptop. If you check this unedited footage shot by film-maker Hassan al Banna Ghani who accompanied me on my investigations to Pakistan and Afghanistan last year, the origins of that iconic picture become very clear.

That is why I stood up in a press conference a few days ago and called Dr. Khan a liar, and then invited him to sue me “in a court of his choice” for slander and defamation. As a journalist I know the seriousness of making such a statement and I do not make it lightly but I also mean what I say and say what I mean.

In the meantime, I will let you – the viewer – make your own judgment about the photograph of Dr. Aafia. Perhaps you have your own theories about why her ex-husband would lie. Here is the clip

The divorce was, without doubt, a very bitter experience for both sides as most divorces are. Bitterness can remain a lifetime companion, but at the end of the day Dr. Aafia is the mother of his three children and as such she deserves his support and respect.

If he can’t give it, then I suggest Dr. Khan returns to the shadows once more and stops briefing against his wife.

Sharing details of his failed marriage with Dr. Aafia, serves no purpose although I have to question why Dr. Khan signed a legal agreement whereby the custody of the three children was given to Aafia after their split, if he really thought his wife was (as he portrays in the article) … a violent, unstable woman in the sway of jihadists.

In the meantime two of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s children – Marium now aged 10, and six-year-old Suleiman – are still missing.

Perhaps that is something which would concern any parent, but Dr. Khan states casually: “I am sure they are around Karachi and in contact with their maternal family as both Aafia and the children were seen around their house here and in Islamabad on multiple occasions since their alleged disappearance in 2003.

“They may be living under an assumed identity just like Aafia and Ahmed had been living [as Saliha and Ali Ahsan] for five years before they got arrested.”

He said Dr. Fowzia’s claim that the children are missing after being removed from the Bagram prison in Afghanistan “may be an attempt to attract sympathy of the government and the people and distract its attention from the real location.”

He also attempts to pour cold water on claims that Aafiya was held in US custody, including Bagram for five years – but how would he really know?

I, on the otherhand, have eye witness accounts that the woman known as Prisoner 650 who was held in Bagram for years is none other than Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

Even the US authorities, after months of denial, finally supported my statements and admitted that Prisoner 650 was indeed a female detainee in their custody.

The only dispute we have now is the identity of Prisoner 650. The US authorities say she isn’t Aafia but refuse to say who she is and to which country she was returned.

I, on the other hand, now have an interview statement given freely by former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed confirming that Prisoner 650 and Dr. Aafia Siddiqui are one in the same. This man saw her during his time in Bagram and has made a positive identification. His evidence is, in my opinion, irrefutable.

Again, make your own judgments by checking out Binyam Mohamed’s interview through this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGHWcPRBQr8

I now understand Aafia’s case is going to be submitted to the International Court of Justice in  The Hague and that the government of Pakistan is making serious efforts on this issue.

In the meantime the case against Aafia will be resumed in New York later this month after a psychologist and physician give their reports regarding her health and if she is fit to plead.

The court hearing is, in itself, illegal and I’m not sure how it can go ahead. I say that on the basis Aafia, is after all a Pakistani citizen who is being tried for an alleged offence carried out in Afghanistan. She is only standing trial in America because she was put on a rendition flight to America – and was certainly not extradited.

* Yvonne Ridley is a patron of the human rights organisation Cage Prisoners and works as a broadcast journalist. her weekly show The Agenda goes out every Friday evening 8.07(GMT) on Press TV – her website is www.yvonneridley.org

References to this aricle:

Interview with Binyam Mohamed: http://www.presstv.com/programs/player/?id=90350

Interview with Governor of Ghazni: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhseSkNX68

Interview in The News: http://www.thenews.com.pk/print3.asp?id=20404

Source:lhttp://www.freeaafia.org/updates/46-international-news/115-pak-govt-ordered-to-secure-the-release-of-dr-aafia.htm