US-trained Pakistani neuroscientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui, 38, was convicted after a jury trial in a US federal court of assault with intent to murder her US interrogators in Afghanistan and awarded an extra hard sentence of 86 years in jail. According to the prosecution, she had picked up the rifle and opened fire on US servicemen and FBI representatives trying to take her into detention.
She missed and in a struggle was herself shot by one of the US soldiers. Defence lawyers argued there was no physical evidence, such as fingerprints or gunpowder traces, to show Siddiqui even grabbed the rifle. The accused maintained she had never fired a gun in her life. Dr Aafia Siddiqui had disappeared under mysterious circumstances from Karachi in 2003 when she left her mother's house, along with three children, to catch a flight to Rawalpindi. She never reached the airport.
It was believed that like scores of others suspected of affiliations with al Qaeda she, too, was whisked away by security agencies to be handed over to the US for head money, a common occurrence in those days, brazenly acknowledged by Musharraf in his book "In the Line of Fire". She claimed in the court that she was kept in confinement in Afghanistan and subjected to torture before being taken to the US.
She had denied she had ever attacked or fired at the American security personnel as claimed by the prosecution. One of her children supposed to be accompanying her was last year returned to her sister in Karachi in a secretive manner, while the second one is still missing and the third one is supposedly dead. Aafia's suffering has roused sympathy for her not only in Pakistan but among Muslims in the US also, as indicated by the large gathering of sympathisers outside the court in Manhattan where the trial was taking place.
There is no disagreement about Dr Aafia's ideological affiliations. While a student in the US, she was known to be engaged in Islamic charity work and proselytising. There was nothing illegal about these activities. There was no indication however of her association with extremist groups. In 2003, a year after she left the US for Pakistan, her name was somehow added to the "FBI Seeking Information - War on Terrorism list" indicating that the agency wanted to locate and question her. How Aafia developed the alleged contacts with al Qaeda remains unknown.
While the allegations are yet to be proved, if correct she was among the first highly educated Pakistanis of middle class origin to come under the influence of extremists. Some of the policies followed by the US including an unstilted support for Israel, turning a blind eye to its nuclear arsenal while leaning on Iran for pursuing what Tehran calls a peaceful nuclear programme, and looking the other way as Indian excesses continue in occupied Kashmir have pushed many moderately religious Muslims to extremism.
While this in no way justifies the acts subsequently committed by some of them, the trend is likely to continue till the US changes its policy towards the Muslim world, considered by many to be marked by double standards and discrimination.
The conviction has led to strong reaction from her sympathisers who have been pressing for her release. Some of them have sought without success the withdrawal of the case, if nothing else, on humanitarian grounds. They maintain Aafia had already undergone enough punishment including seven years of incarceration and separation from family and children. While one can understand the anger and frustration on the part of Aafia's sister who has threatened to start a movement, there are others itching to use the issue for political gains.
They would do well to listen to Aafia's sobering words after the announcement of the sentence. Reportedly she confirmed that she was tortured in Afghanistan but denied this had happened after she was brought to the US. She called on her sympathisers to forgive the judge. "I do not want any bloodshed. I do not want any misunderstanding.
I really want to make peace and end the war." She said she was not an enemy of the US or Israel. If she has been reported correctly, the remarks indicate a level of maturity, which often is the result of deep suffering and reminds one of the ancient Greek temple where a frieze on the upper part of the entrance carried the words, "Knowledge comes out of suffering."