Who is Dr Aafia Siddiqui?
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani national currently serving an 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Fort Worth, Texas. She has been accused of attempted murder of US citizens and officers, among other felonies.
Siddiqui was born in Pakistan in March 1972. Then she studied in the United States and obtained a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University in 2001. She returned to Pakistan following the 9/11 attacks and again in 2003 during the war on Afghanistan.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Childhood
Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan, to Muhammad Salay Siddiqui, a British-trained neurosurgeon, and Ismet, an Islamic schoolteacher, social and charity worker.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Family
Her mother, Ismet Siddiqui, was a prominent political and religious figure. She tutored classes on Islam wherever she lived, launched the “United Islamic Organization”, and served as a member of Pakistan’s congress.
Siddiqui is the youngest of three siblings. Her brother, Muhammad, studied architecture in Houston, Texas. At the same time, her sister, Fowzia, is a Harvard- trained neurologist who worked at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore and taught at Johns Hopkins University before returning to Pakistan.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Education and Qualification
Until age eight, Aafia attended a school in Zambia and then finished her primary and secondary training in Karachi.
Afia moved to Houston, Texas, US, on a study visa in 1990, joining her brother, who studied architecture then. She attended the University of Houston, where friends and family described her interests as limited to religion and studies. She avoided pictures, novels, and TV, except for the news. After three semesters, she transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1992, as a sophomore, Siddiqui won a $ 5,000 Carroll. Wilson Award for her research proposal: “Islamization in Pakistan and its Effects on Women”.
As a junior, she entered a$ 1,200 City Days fellowship through MIT’s program to help clean up Cambridge Elementary School playgrounds. While initially majoring in biology, anthropology, and archaeology at MIT, she graduated in 1995 with a BS in biology.
Aafia remained active in charity work and proselytizing. Her fellow MIT scholars described her as religious, which wasn’t unusual at the time, but not a fundamentalist. She joined the Muslim Scholars’ Association and began recruiting members for association meetings and distributing flyers. After returning from Pakistan, Siddiqui started charity work for the Al Kifah Refugee Center.
Siddiqui studied cognitive neuroscience at Brandeis University. In early 1999, as a graduate student, she tutored the General Biology Laboratory course. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2001 after completing her discussion on learning through imitation.
Aafia Siddiqui’s First Marriage and Husband
In 1995, she agreed to a marriage arranged by her mother to Karachi- born anesthesiologist Amjad Mohammed Khan just out of the medical academy and whom she had no way seen. The wedding was conducted over the telephone and Khan also immigrated to the US as a Brigham and Women’s Hospital anesthesiologist.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Children
She gave birth to a son, Muhammad Ahmed, in 1996, and to a daughter, Mariam Bint- e Muhammad, in 1998. In September 2002, Siddiqui gave birth to Suleman, the last of their three children.
Divorce from First Husband
Tensions began to arise in her marriage, which, according to Siddiqui’s husband Khan, was caused by her commitment to activism and jihad. Siddiqui temporarily moved away from her husband after he threw a baby bottle at her causing injury. In the summer of 2001, the couple moved to Malden, Massachusetts.
According to Khan, after the 9/11 attacks, Siddiqui was adamant that the family leave the US, saying that their lives were in danger if they remained there. Once in Pakistan, Siddiqui demanded that the family move to the border with Afghanistan and Khan work as a doctor to help the Taliban mujahideen in their fight against America. But Khan did not agree, and Siddiqui decided to return to him in the US in January 2002 after he agreed to her conditions, including joining her in Islamic activities.
In August 2002, Khan contended that Siddiqui was abusive and manipulative throughout their seven years of marriage; he suspected she was involved in revolutionist and extremist activities.
And finally, the couple’s divorce was finalized on 21 October 2002.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Work
In 1999, while living in Boston, Siddiqui founded the Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching as a nonprofit organization. She was the organization’s chairman, her husband was treasurer, and her sister was a resident agent. Siddiqui attended a mosque outside the city where she donated Qurans and Islamic literature for distribution. She also founded the Dawa Resource Center, which offered various Islamic services to Muslim convicts.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Second Husband
In February 2003, Siddiqui married Ammar al-Baluchi, an indicted al-Qaeda member and a nephew of al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed( KSM), in Karachi. While her family denies she married al-Baluchi, Pakistani and US intelligence sources, a psychologist for the defense during her 2009 trial, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s family all confirm that the marriage occurred. The marriage lasted only a couple of months. According to one of KSM’s uncles, Mohammed Hussein, al-Baluchi divorced her after he was arrested.
How Did Aafia Siddiqui Reach Afghanistan?
Siddiqui left her parents’ house on 30 March 2003 with her three children, aware that the FBI wanted her. According to her parents, she would go to Islamabad to visit her uncle, but she did not arrive. Around 25 March, the FBI released a” worldwide alert” for Aafia and her husband.
Siddiqui’s and her children’s whereabouts are unknown from March 2003 to July 2008. Her sympathizers and the Pakistani government claim she was held as a detainee by the US; but the US government and others( including Siddiqui in her statements to the FBI incontinently after her arrest) suggest she went into hiding with KSM’s al-Baluchi family.
In 2003 – 04, the FBI and the Pakistani government said Siddiqui was still at large.
Siddiqui’s uncle, Shams ul- Hassan Faruqi, stated that on 22 January 2008, she visited him in Islamabad and told him Pakistani agencies had held her. Knowing he’d worked in Afghanistan and made contact with the Taliban in 1999, she asked for his help to cross into Taliban- controlled Afghanistan, where she would be safe but he told her he was no longer in touch with them. Later, he notified Siddiqui’s mother, who came to see her daughter. He said that Siddiqui stayed with them for two days.
Ahmed and Siddiqui reappeared in 2008. Afghan authorities handed the boy over to his aunt in Pakistan in September 2008.
Aafia Siddiqui Arrested in Afghanistan
On the evening of 17 July 2008, Ghazni Province police officers arrested a woman in the city of Ghazni outside the Ghazni governor’s home. She was holding two small bags at her side while crouching on the ground. This caused the officers to suspect that she might be hiding a bomb.
In the bags, she had several chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars, along with about two pounds of sodium cyanide, an essentially poisonous substance. She later confessed to a suicide bomb attack against the governor of Ghazni Province.
What Did Aafia Siddiqui Do?
There are different accounts of the events following her arrest in Ghazni. American authorities said that two FBI agents, a US Army officer, a US Army captain, and the US military practitioners arrived in Ghazni the following day, on 18 July, to interview Siddiqui at the Afghan National Police station.
The US officers relate that during an unforeseen attack, Siddiqui seized the rifle of one of the army officers and shot at them.
Allegedly she also kicked and hit the officers.
Siddiqui denied touching a gun or hitting anyone. She said she stood up to see who was present and that after one of the startled officers cried,” She’s loose”, she was shot. On recovering, she said someone said,” We could lose our jobs”.
Charges Against Aafia Siddiqui
On 31 July 2008, while Siddiqui was held in Afghanistan, she was charged in the United States District Court with assault with a deadly weapon and trying to kill a United States Army Captain.
She was charged with two counts of tried murder of US citizens, officers, and workers and assault with a deadly armament.
Aafia Siddiqui Conviction
On 3 February 2010, Siddiqui was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, and armed assault. She was also accused of three counts of assault against US officers and employees.
Finally, Judge Berman sentenced Siddiqui to 86 years in jail.
Which Jail is Aafia Siddiqui in?
Siddiqui was first held at Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn. She’s now being held in Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, a civil jail for female convicts with unique mental health requirements.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Children
Ahmed was released from Afghanistan to his aunt in Pakistan following an enormous roar from the Pakistani public and politicians. He now lives with his aunt in Karachi, who has banned him from talking to the press.
When a girl who may have been his younger sister, Maryam, was returned to Ahmed’s family, tests to confirm her identity were inconclusive. His aunt Fawzia did not believe that the girl was her niece. But later, DNA tests revealed that she was Siddiqui’s daughter.
Aafia Siddiqui’s Latest Meeting with Her Family
Siddiqui met her sister, Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui, after nearly 20 years at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Fort Worth, Texas.
During the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, the two sisters remained separated by a glass partition. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui informed her family about her treatment by the US authorities.
