Dr Aafia Siddiqui assaulted in US prison: FO

Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) said on Saturday that Dr Aafia Siddiqui was attacked by a fellow inmate at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Carswell on July 30, adding that "she was doing fine."

In a statement, FO spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said that we have information that she was attacked by a fellow inmate.

"Our embassy in Washington, DC as well as our consulate general in Houston immediately took up the matter with the concerned US authorities," he said.

"Our consul general in Houston visited Dr Siddiqui immediately to ascertain her well-being. She had received some minor injuries but was doing fine," he added

According to a British human rights organization CAGE, Dr Siddiqui had suffered severe injuries during the attack.

“[A fellow inmate] smashed a coffee mug filled with scalding hot liquid into her face,” read the press release issued by the CAGE, an independent organisation in the UK.

“Shocked by the violent assault and in excruciating pain, Dr Siddiqui curled into a fetal position to protect herself. She was unable to get up after the assault and had to be taken out of the cell in a wheelchair.”

The report also says that Dr Siddiqui has been placed in administrative solitary confinement for an unspecified period of time.

Dr Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years imprisonment for attempted murder after a controversial trial in 2010, during which she accused witnesses of lying.

“Aafia Siddiqui’s case remains one of the most troubling in the sordid history of the “War on Terror,” Moazzam Begg, CAGE Outreach Director, said in a statement.

“It is time this chapter of Aafia Siddiqui’s life was closed. She needs to go home and be with the children she never saw grow up,” he added.

Pakistan's foreign office has asked the US authorities for an investigation into the incident.