A video of Aafia speaking on the subject of "Women in Islam" was recently released.  The video shows Aafia speaking at a gathering İN Houston in 1991 when she was 19 years old. The video had over 90,000 views within the first week.

Family of Aafia confirm the voice in the video is Aafia and so is the picture and clothes. However, the family was not aware of this particular event in Houston and is tryingto get in touch with Br. Jamal Badawi and Hakim Olagewan who are present in the audience.

Circumstances Surrounding the Case

Briefly, here are some of the basic circumstances of Dr. Aafia’s case:

In March 2003, Dr. Aafia and her three children, Ahmad (boy), six years old and an American citizen, Maryum (girl), four years old and also an American citizen, and baby 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 as was the case with thousands 

Then, in July of 2008, three events occurred:

1. 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”

2. A petition for habeas corpus 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.

3.  A wave of International outrage emerged as evidence of illegal detainees in Bagram and other secret detention centers began piling up. A request from the House of Lords in UK to inspect the Bagram facility and a meeting 

With prisoner 650 was sent by various human rights activists worldwide echoed. 

It was in the midst of this whole scenario that a disoriented Aafia is found in Afghanistan and shot a sinister plot that makes one shudder. 

What evidence Investigation has uncovered?

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. However, the Person who kidnapped her has finally come forward and confessed to the heinous crime on the behest of her ex-husband and the regime that stripped Pakistan Off its dignity by selling its own citizens. 

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 with a shoot on sight order on the day she was detained in Ghazni.

That had Dr. Aafia been shot on sight on suspicion of being suicide bombers, this would have led to a convenient closure of the case of Aafia Siddiqui at a time when a massive outcry from international community and a petition for habeas corpus was pending in the High Court of Pakistan in Islamabad. 

Note that this court had been asked to order then-President Musharraf and the Pakistani government (which would include anyone working with them) to release her or to reveal her whereabouts.

That Dr. Aafia, who spoke no local language in Ghazni, was dressed so conspicuously in a manner to be easily identified and shoot 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 judges closing arguments jury disregarded the evidence and chose to agree with the prosecution due to fear and prejudice.

What Dr. Aafia’s detractors want?

We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia, a respectable Pakistani woman in all ways, has links to terrorists from Pakistan; (NO terrorism charges against her) was voluntarily hiding under cover with three children acting as a terror field operative while at the same time leaving her family to believe for five years that she and her three children were dead.

We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia arranged this just after her father died, after finding out her husband cheating on her marriage was disintegrating, and after leaving her widowed mother alone in Pakistan. It is absolutely not plausible and does not even fit the traditional profile by law enforcement of female or male terrorists from that part of the world.

Current Situation

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. The forensic and physical evidence denies those charges.

ILKHA