 [GEO.TV] Dr Aafia Siddiqui
...American-educated Pak cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. In September 2010, she was sentenced to 86 years in jug after a three-ring trial. Siddiqui, using the alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda members who bought $19 million worth of blood diamonds in Liberia immediately prior to 9-11-01. Since her incarceration Paks have taken her to their heart and periodically erupt into demonstrations, while the government tries to find somebody to swap for her...
, a Pak neuroscientist currently serving an 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, has sought presidential pardon ahead of power transfer in the US, terming her jail term as ''a blatant miscarriage of justice''.
| Her lawyer was of the view that the US intelligence "got the wrong end of the stick in the beginning" as agencies thought Siddiqui was a nuclear physicist working on a radioactive bomb "when she really did her PhD in education". |
Siddiqui, who has been languishing in US prison for over 14 years, hoped she would be freed after "new evidence" emerged which may suggest her innocence, Sky News reported.
She has maintained her innocence and hopes ''the tide could now be turning''.
"I hope I am not forgotten, and I hope that one day soon I will be released," she told the British news channel through her lawyer.
"I am... a victim of injustice, pure and simple. Every day is torture... it is not easy. One day, Inshallah (God-willing), I will be released from this torment."
In a 76,500-word dossier, her counsel Clive Stafford Smith urged outgoing US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
 ...46th president of the U.S. The man who made Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter look competent, if only by comparison....
to issue a pardon for her client.
Her lawyer claims a catalogue of intelligence errors led to her initially becoming a suspect, citing witness testimonies that were unavailable at the time of her trial.
He alleges that, while Siddiqui was visiting Pakistain in 2003, she was kidnapped with her three children and handed to the CIA, which took her to Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
At the time of her trial in 2010, the judge stated: "There is no credible evidence in the record that the US officials and/or agencies detained Siddiqui" before her 2008 arrest, adding there is "no evidence in the record to substantiate these allegations or to establish them as fact".
Her lawyer was of the view that the US intelligence "got the wrong end of the stick in the beginning" as agencies thought Siddiqui was a nuclear physicist working on a radioactive bomb "when she really did her PhD in education".
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