Islamabad High Court Orders Pakistan’s Foreign Office To Take Up Issue Of Release Of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui – Who Is Serving An 86-Year Sentence For Attacking U.S. Military Personnel In Afghanistan – With U.S. Ambassador In Pakistan

On December 7, 2022, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered the Foreign Office of Pakistan to take up the issue of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui – a Pakistani national serving an 86-year jail sentence in a Texas prison for attempted murder of American military personnel in Afghanistan – with the U.S. ambassador in Pakistan.[1]

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who has a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University and another degree from the Massachusetts of Technology (MIT), was held in Afghanistan over links with jihadi groups, though her supporters say she was picked up in a joint U.S.-Pakistani secret operation from Pakistan, before being taken to Afghanistan and later to the U.S.

She was indicted in 2008 and sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison for assaulting U.S. officials during an interview in Afghanistan. She was arrested with “a number of items in her possession, including handwritten notes that referred to a mass casualty attack and that listed various locations in the U.S., including Plum Island, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Bridge,” and instructions for making “dirty bombs.”[2]

A movement in favor of Aafia Siddiqui’s release, supported by Islamist groups worldwide, has emerged in the U.S., Pakistan, and other countries. In Pakistan, pro-Siddiqui groups have been pressuring the Pakistani government to negotiate her release from the U.S. prison, though she is also an American citizen of Pakistani origin.[3]

In the Islamabad High Court, Justice Sardar Aijaz Ishaq Khan, who heard the petition seeking the release of Aafia Siddiqui, “expressed dissatisfaction” over the Pakistani government’s response that “there is no satisfactory response from the U.S.” regarding her release.[4] The judge ordered the Foreign Office secretary, the highest bureaucrat of the ministry, to appear before it to explain the Pakistani government’s position on Aafia Siddiqui’s release.

Similar cases have been filed in Pakistani courts in the past. In June 2022, the Islamabad High Court had directed the Pakistani Foreign Ministry to support Siddiqui’s family in securing a U.S. visa “with the assurance that the family’s liberty and safety will not be endangered by association with her.”[5]

Pakistani politicians and military officials have frequently come under popular pressure to work with the United States government for Aafia Siddiqui’s release. A proposal to exchange Aafia Siddiqui for Dr. Shakil Afridi was rejected in 2012 by then chief of the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt.-Gen. Zaheerul Islam. In the U.S., Congressmen led by Dana Rohrabacher have called for granting U.S. citizenship to Dr. Shakil Afridi.

Dr. Shakil Afridi is a Pakistani doctor jailed over his role in organizing a medical camp for kids that helped the CIA obtain DNA samples, leading to the identification of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the subsequent U.S. military raid killing him in May 2011. “He [Dr. Afridi] will never be bartered for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, no such proposal is under consideration,” then ISI chief Islam said.[6]

After the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA, i.e., the Afghan Taliban) seized power in Kabul in August 2021, Islamist groups worldwide launched a new movement in Pakistan and the U.S. to work for Siddiqui’s release from the Texas prison. In September 2021, a protest was organized in front of FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where Aafia Siddiqui is serving her jail term.

At the protest, American-Pakistani social activist Nadrat Siddiqui went on to accuse U.S. courts of being headed by Zionists, stating: “One of the few ways that these political prisoners, which Dr. Aafia is… can achieve a measure of justice that is, is really in the court of public opinion because as we see, the court, headed by the Zionist judges usually, and other judges who have a vested interest, they never give a damn about the Muslim prisoners…”[7]

Omar Suleiman, an American Islamic scholar and president of the Yaqueen Institute, who also addressed the protesters, said: “Hold me accountable, hold the person next to you accountable, and say, ‘Where are you for your sister Aafia? Because she’s our sister.’ Some of you are not Muslims with your sister’s humanity. You claim to be for human rights. This is one of the greatest violations of human rights in the 9/11 era. And as we’re revisiting all of the crimes, whether in the form of foreign policy or domestic policy, committed after 9/11, it’s time we reopened the cases of these political prisoners that were put away in sham trials.”[8]

On October 8, 2021, Pakistani protesters held a rally in Karachi, marching from the Karachi Press Club to the U.S. Consulate where they submitted a memorandum demanding that U.S. President Joe Biden “use the power of his presidential pardon and consider the case of Siddiqui a victim of the U.S. war on terror.”[9] In Pakistan, the effort to free Siddiqui occasionally erupts, putting the pressure on the Pakistani government, in particular the Islamabad High Court, which also understands that this is an international issue.