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SAEED SHAH

From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail

ISLAMABAD — For years, her existence was known only through her cries of pain and the occasional glimpses of her by other prisoners at Bagram, the U.S. base in Afghanistan that houses a notorious prison. She became known as the Grey Lady of Bagram, a ghostly figure who was said to have lost her mind.

It has been long suspected that the woman is Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist accused by the United States of offering her services to al-Qaeda.

Dr. Siddiqui, who studied biology in the United States at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, disappeared in 2003 from Karachi, along with her three children. Her family, who protest her innocence, believe that she was abducted by Pakistani intelligence agents and later transferred to U.S. custody. The United States has consistently denied holding her, and the Pentagon stated that it keeps no women under detention at Bagram.

This week, a fantastic tale emerged from U.S. officials at the Department of Justice. They finally admitted having Dr. Siddiqui – in New York– but claimed that she was arrested with her 12-year-old son only in mid-July, in Ghazni, eastern Afghanistan, by Afghan security forces. She is alleged to have been in possession of documents on explosives, descriptions of various U.S. landmarks and chemical substances. A day later, she reportedly was handed over to FBI and military officials. Then, it is said, she was left “unsecured” in an interrogation room.
Fauzia Siddiqui, sister of U.S.-trained neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, speaks during a news conference in Karachi August 5, 2008.
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Fauzia Siddiqui, sister of U.S.-trained neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, speaks during a news conference in Karachi August 5, 2008. (Athar Hussain/Reuters)
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The Globe and Mail

She is alleged to have sneaked up behind an officer and got hold of his M-4 rifle and fired two shots, exclaiming ” Allah akbar!” (God is great). The shots missed as an interpreter lunged at her. The officer used his pistol to fire back, hitting her at least once in the torso, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York.

She is reported now to be charged, not with any terrorism-related offence, but with “attempted murder and assault” of U.S. officers during her arrest.

Meanwhile, a very different story of the arrest was told by Afghan police. According to a report filed from Ghazni by the Reuters News Agency, U.S. soldiers demanded that local police hand over Dr. Siddiqui, which they refused. The troops disarmed the Afghan police at gunpoint, at which time Dr. Siddiqui approached the Americans, complaining of mistreatment by the police. The U.S. troops, according to an unnamed Afghan police officer, “thinking that she had explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shot her and took her.”

The case of Dr. Siddiqui has become a national cause in Pakistan, with horrific tales of her being tortured and repeatedly raped. It is fuelling already rampant anti-Americanism in a key Western ally in the war on terrorism.

“Her rape and torture is a crime beyond anything she was accused of,” said her visibly shaken sister, Fauzia Siddiqui, speaking in Karachi Tuesday. “This is the real crime of terror here.”

Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist turned human-rights campaigner who has investigated the case, said that she discovered that Dr. Siddiqui was known as Prisoner 650 at Bagram.

“These concoctions just show how the Americans will stop at nothing to subvert justice,” Ms. Ridley said. “They say that she is an al-Qaeda supporter and that she’s very dangerous. Yet she’s left alone in a room with a weapon. … This is pure fantasy.”

Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan national and a former Bagram detainee, told an Arabic news channel in 2005 that he saw a “Pakistani” woman there being taken to use the toilet by male guards, who watched her.

“This woman stayed there until she lost her mind, until she became insane, hitting the door and screaming day and night,” Mr. al-Libi said.

There is no way to corroborate the various detainee accounts or whether the woman, if there was one, was Dr. Siddiqui, but the dates of these accounts coincide with the period she was missing.

Dr. Siddiqui has been on the FBI and CIA wanted lists for years. According to the old allegations made against her, she rented a post office box on behalf of al-Qaeda suspect Majid Khan, worked as a fixer in the Boston area for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and raised some funds for al-Qaeda through a diamond transaction in Liberia. It seems her scientific knowledge is not alleged to have been put to use by the terrorist network.

globeandmail.com: Scientist now suspect in bizarre tale of Grey Lady of Bagram

August 6th, 2008 | Category: Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, Female Detainee, Ghost, Grey Lady of Bagram, Sexual Abuse |  Print This Post | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL