NEW YORK // The top female suspect on the United States' terrorist wanted list appeared in a US federal court to face evidence that appeared to contradict claims she had been held for the past five years in a secret US detention facility. Suffering from a bullet wound to her stomach, sustained during an alleged assault in Afghanistan, Aafia Siddiqui, 36, had to be helped into the New York courtroom to face murder and assault charges on Tuesday.
A petite and frail figure wrapped in a maroon scarf, Siddiqui, who was educated at some of the top schools in the United States, shook her head in apparent bewilderment as the judge read out the criminal complaint. She had been flown from Afghanistan into New York's JFK Airport on Monday after being formally arrested earlier that day, officials and her lawyers said. US military officials and prosecutors claim Siddiqui tried to kill US soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan last month.
She was remanded in custody pending a bail hearing scheduled for Monday. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of two counts - attempted murder of US officers and assault. A neuroscientist and mother of three, Siddiqui lived in Boston and has a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate in behavioural neuroscience from Brandeis University. She is alleged to have used her skills to assist al Qa'eda operatives before returning to Pakistan in 2002.
On July 18, Siddiqui is alleged to have seized a US serviceman's rifle during interrogation in Afghanistan and opened fire. Her transfer from Afghanistan to Manhattan is painted by officials as an example of the United States' long reach in its "war on terrorism". But her defence lawyers say Siddiqui has for the past five years been held captive - possibly in a secret US or allied prison in Afghanistan - and that the attempted murder charges were invented as a pretext to bring her to US territory.
They say she was tortured and even raped while held at the Bagram airbase or elsewhere in Afghanistan after she disappeared with her three children in 2003 from her parents' home in Karachi. The United States has denied this. The defence says Siddiqui was physically incapable of assaulting officers at an Afghan police station, as alleged. "Picture this woman, who is very tiny, and ask yourself how she engaged in armed conflict with six military men," Elaine Sharp said.
"It's not plausible. It's not credible and there's nothing to support it," said Elizabeth Fink, another lawyer. Siddiqui had suffered "enormous human rights violations", Ms Fink said. Ms Sharp said Siddiqui had no idea of who held her and where. She said her client was abused during her confinement without indicating how. "She's very traumatised, very fragile. She doesn't know where her children are."
Siddiqui is a devout Muslim, according to her lawyers, and while living in the United States took active part in fundraising for the kind of Islamic charities Washington claims provide cover for al Qa'eda funding. The New York-based Human Rights Watch listed Siddiqui last year as among a number of terrorism suspects who might at one time have been held at a secret CIA facility. In 2006, Amnesty International, based in London, listed her as one of many "disappeared" suspects in the US "war on terrorism".
Pakistan's ambassador to Washington made a request for consular access to Siddiqui on Monday. @Email:sdevi@thenational.ae * With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse