Advertisement

How Aafia Siddiqui became a cause celebre for Islamic terrorists

How Aafia Siddiqui became a cause celebre for Islamic terrorists - AP
How Aafia Siddiqui became a cause celebre for Islamic terrorists - AP

To United States intelligence officials Aafia Siddiqui is a dangerous terrorist operative who entertained plans to bomb New York and deserves her tabloid moniker: Lady al-Qaeda.

When the the former neuroscientist was in 2010 handed an 86-years jail sentence, justice officials hailed it as a major victory against international terrorism.

Yet to many in her homeland of Pakistan and beyond, she is instead an innocent Muslim mother-of-three who fell foul of America's ruthless war on terror and was subject to a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Sympathy for her as an oppressed victim is so widespread, and her fate has become such a cause célèbre for militant groups, that she has frequently been named in potential hostage swaps for kidnapped Westerners.

In 2010 Afghan kidnappers demanded her release in return for the freedom of captured British aid worker Linda Norgrove. According to a letter made public in 2014, the Islamic State group offered to release James Foley, the American journalist the militants later beheaded, in exchange for her release.

How Aafia Siddiqui became a cause celebre for Islamic terrorists - AP
How Aafia Siddiqui became a cause celebre for Islamic terrorists - AP

The 49-year-old daughter of an English-trained, Pakistani doctor, she was born in Karachi and moved to America to study in around 1991, attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then earning a PhD from Brandeis University, her trial was told.

During the 1990s, she is believed to have become increasingly radicalised while campaigning for persecuted Bosnians and increasingly blamed America for the plight of Muslims.

The 9/11 attacks are thought to have hardened her resolve and in May 2002 the FBI questioned her and her husband after they had bought $10,000 worth of night-vision goggles, body armour and military manuals.

She returned to Pakistan and was said to have fallen in with an al-Qaeda cell in Karachi before disappearing in 2003, by which point she was one of America's most wanted terrorist suspects.

She resurfaced in 2008 when she was detained in Afghanistan. American investigators said they had found her carrying handwritten notes that discussed the construction of so-called "dirty bombs" made from radioactive materials and listed potential US targets for a "mass casualty attack".

While being questioned at an Afghan police compound, she is accused of grabbing a rifle from a US army officer and opening fire on her American interrogators.

She was convicted in 2010 of trying to kill the soldiers, among other charges. At her sentencing, she gave rambling statements in which she delivered a message of world peace and forgave the judge, but denied her own lawyers arguments that she deserved leniency for mental illness.

After she was sentenced, Al-Qaeda's then number two called on Muslims to "avenge" the decision.

How Aafia Siddiqui became a cause celebre for Islamic terrorists - Fareed Khan /AP
How Aafia Siddiqui became a cause celebre for Islamic terrorists - Fareed Khan /AP

Pakistan condemned her conviction and the prime minister at the time, Yousuf Raza Gilani, called her the "daughter of the nation".

During his election campaign, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, an open critic of US action linked to the war on terror, vowed to get her released. He offered to free Shakeel Afridi, who is languishing in Pakistani jail over his role in helping Americans trace Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.

Siddiqui is currently being held at a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where she was badly scalded last year when another inmate threw hot liquid in her face.