Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty of Attempted Murder

I've been remiss in covering this, but last week, Aafia Siddiqui was found guilty of attempted murder of an American soldier:

"An MIT-trained Pakistani woman was convicted this afternoon (2-3-2010) for trying to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan in 2008."

"The tirade-prone Aafia Siddiqui, 37, was found guilty of attempted murder by a jury in Manhattan federal court, even after she denied charges that she had opened fire on US soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan."

"After the verdict was read, Siddiqui turned to the gallery, pointed her finger in the air and said, 'This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America, and that is where the anger belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof.' "

Ms. Siddiqui is decidedly not fond of Jews.  She tried to have jurors tested to see if they had "Jewish blood," and she tried to fire her Jewish lawyers.  Brandeis may want to be choosier about who they let in.

Aafia has been found guilty and now awaits sentencing.  We didn't learn during the trial where she was during her missing years of 2003 to 2008.  We don't know what happened to two of her three children.  (One son, Ahmad, is now in the custody of Aafia's sister, Harvard-trained doctor Fouzia, and the Siddiqui family has refused to let Dr. Muhammed Khan, the child's father ,to see him. And I thought shariah law gave greater custody rights to the father than the mother.)  We don't know how or when Aafia was  pulled into the Islamist jihadi world, although it's likely that it was through people she met at Muslim groups at MIT and at Boston area mosques, where she gave lectures and raised funds for Chechnya and Bosnia. 

Blogger Bobalu Chowdury pointed me to this hand-written letter from Aadfia.  He's transcribed it here. Excerpts:

To all Americans loyal to the USA: This comes from someone the ignorant among you may consider to be their “enemy” based on the propaganda put forth by the Zionist controlled US media. I am someone who spent in 12 years in the US and am grateful to the US for my college education, that with God’s will has allowed me to be able to analyze things and see them for what they are.

.....The US economy CANNOT handle more wars, especially wars designed to “benefit” Israel at the expense of the existence of the USA. Study the history of the Jews. They have always back-stabbed everyone who has taken pity on them and make the “fatal” error of giving them shelter. This was the “crime” of the Arabs of Palestine and least is the “crime” of th USA – and it is this cruel, ungrateful back-stabbing of the Jews that makes these has caused them to be mercilessly compelled from whatever thy gain strength. This is why “holocausts” keep happening to them repeatedly! If they would only learn to be grateful and change their behavior!! But they will not! And history will repeat itself, as it always does!

Aafia wanted this to get to the President. Good gracious, Lord Almighty.

 

Pakistan is no doubt up in arms over this, this feeds the flames of anti-Americanism there, as if that needed any more oxygen.   Meanwhile in Peshawar, Afghanistan, the Taliban are threatening to execute an American soldier they claim they're holding if Aafia is not released. The senior Taliban commander claimed that "AafiaSiddiqui’s family had approached the Taliban network through a Jirga of notables, seeking their assistance to put pressure on the US to provide her justice."  The American soldier is Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho.  According to the Idaho Mountain Express, "He is a member of the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska. He is the only U.S. soldier in captivity in Afghanistan."

 

More to follow on this.  I'm glad she was found guilty and she's not walking around Afghanistan or Pakistan or Boston.  Clearly, something was up with this woman. 

 

Phyllis Chesler discusses here.   There was an interesting comment (#34) by Annie: 

"Met Aafia Siddiqui in a social setting. She was charming and absolutely nothing she said of substance was true. She was clearly at that gathering to obtain information, if she could, from certain people there. She very closely shadowed people in the US who would have been of value to al qaeda, if kidnapped. When I questioned her about the details of her 'dance company' and her decision to dance her way into MIT, she turned on a dime and became who she was…a terrorist. She told me that she was in town on business for her charity, Benevolence International, and that she was certainly here to visit her good friend, Tanya binLaden.She escaped to Pakistan shortly afterwards, ahead of the feds."

"She didn’t like Jews and she was shadowing one at this social event."

"She wasn’t the sort of person to carry a laundry list of places to bomb…but perhaps a laundry list of databases to access, buzz words to allow her to visit other cells of al qaeda worldwide, or perhaps she was simply in charge of destroying leftover data the day she was captured."

"I know nothing about studying the proclivities of women to violence, but she is not a nice woman. She is a terrorist. I would hope the Pakistani government would not support extended appeals of her sentence. They have much to regret".

Comments

[peace]

I must say I am not happy about the verdict. I disagree and something that most people forget, is that she was never on trial for terrorism but for alleged assault and attempted killing of U.S. agents.

I followed the case intensively and some questions remain. Many. But the main factor was the lack of forenisic evidence and any concrete proof of the alleged assault.

Also when I see her state, physical and mental, I am distraught.

Irrespective of what a person has done or not done, human rights must not be neglected, which they were in this case.

The bias is often strong I find, on both sides. Majority of muslims assume she is innocent because she is a muslim mother while some object to the lack of evidence. Others think she is a terrorist. And many are using it to justify their inate hate of the U.S and all things americans or western. But fact remains we had little facts and the facts we have do not really match the crime. Her family cries daily rape, whereas none of this has been confirmed by anybody. The speculation and conspiracy theories are many.

To me her case makes little sense and the various (at times conflicting) accounts are complicating matters.

I think our outbursts and anti-semitic, anti-western, anti-U.S statements can be ascribed to her mental state. Prior to disappearing in 2003, she infact wanted to come to the U.S. because options were better. Anybody even remotely aware of Pakistan and its culture and gender inequality issues, will know why. From my understanding of her colleagues/ex-fellowstudents/professors, she was intelligent and excelled in her field requiring challenges which Pakistan could not give her.

That said, I don't object to prosecuting people who are criminal but with their basic human rights intact.

The questions are too pressing and many for this verdict to be even remotely acceptable.

Another question that eats away is the fate of her 2 kids. I suspect both are either killed off or in prisoner somewhere. And the latter would be pure hell.