| Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to murder US agents and military officers in Afghanistan should be sent to prison for 12 years rather than life because she is mentally ill, her lawyers said in court papers on Wednesday. Lawyers for Siddiqui, 38, made the request in a filing in a US District Court in Manhattan, where she was convicted in February on two counts of attempted murder. The lawyers said Siddiqui was "driven" to her crime by mental illness. "While the degree and extent of Dr Siddiqui's mental illness has been the subject of much discussion in this case, one thing stands perfectly clear: the victim of Dr Siddiqui's irrational behavior is -- first and foremost -- none other than herself," the lawyers wrote. They described her behavior in Ghazni, Afghanistan, as "bizarre," saying Siddiqui was "cut off from any form of rational thought" by her knowledge that US authorities had engaged in the torture of detainees overseas. . Siddiqui is scheduled to be sentenced in mid-August but the date is expected to be moved to September or later. |