Pakistan PM writes to President Biden for Aafia's release from US jail

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has written to US President Joe Biden to request the release of a Pakistani woman who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in the US on terrorism charges, a government lawyer told a court.

The letter from the prime minister was submitted to a court in Islamabad that was hearing a petition from the sister of Aafia Siddiqui, a US-trained neuroscientist who was convicted in 2010 on charges including attempting to kill US nationals.

Aafia Siddiqui became a terrorism suspect after she left the US and married a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept.11, 2001 attacks. She was wounded during a confrontation with US authorities in Afghanistan in 2008. Witnesses say she shot at the Americans.

According to a copy of Shahbaz’s letter, dated Oct.13, seen by The Associated Press, the prime minister informed Biden that the woman had already served 16 years in prison. He wrote that the matter deserved “to be viewed with compassion.”

Shahbaz said over the years, numerous Pakistani officials paid consular visit to her and raised serious concern about the treatment she received, which severely impacted her already fragile mental and as well as frail physical health.

“In fact, they fear that she could take her own life,” Shahbaz wrote about the assessment of the Pakistani officials. He asked Biden to accept her sister’s clemency petition and order her release on humanitarian grounds.

Aafia Siddiqui’s “family, and millions of my fellow citizens join me in seeking your blessings for a favourable outcome of this request,” he told Biden in the letter.

Aafia Siddiqui’s family has long maintained that she disappeared from Karachi in 2003 and blamed the government of former president Pervez Musharraf for secretly handing her over to US officials. Musharraf was in power when Pakistan became an ally of the US in the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks.

His government arrested dozens of suspects and handed them over to various governments, including Washington.

Associated Press