'Noise of terrorism'

US intelligence techniques could come under question in NY trial.

By ALLISON HOFFMAN, JPOST CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK
AAFIA SIDDIQUI al qaida suspect 224 88 (photo credit: AP [file])
AAFIA SIDDIQUI al qaida suspect 224 88
(photo credit: AP [file])
A Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three suspected of being a "fixer" for al-Qaida, moving money to support terrorist operations, has been charged with assault and attempted murder in federal court in Manhattan. Aafia Siddiqui, 36, holds a bachelor's degree from MIT and a doctorate from Brandeis University. Siddiqui's lawyers and human rights groups claim Siddiqui was abducted by intelligence agents and tortured at secret interrogation facilities for five years, until she became a cause celebre in Pakistan and authorities engineered her sudden reappearance with her eldest son, an 11-year-old, in Afghanistan this summer. It is thought she may have been held at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, an American detention facility located at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. According to the indictment, Siddiqui appeared in Ghazni on July 17 carrying a bag packed with chemicals and notes about a "mass casualty attack" involving the Empire State Building or other US landmarks. The following day, she allegedly grabbed an M-4 rifle from a US Army officer and fired it, while stating "her intent and desire to kill Americans." She had vanished with her children in March 2003, while the FBI sought her for questioning about suspected ties to al-Qaida and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She is not accused of any terrorist crimes, though prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing. "There's all the noise of terrorism, but it's not in the charges," said Joanne Mariner, an attorney with Human Rights Watch in New York who has followed the case. Legal experts say if her lawyers are right, Siddiqui, already unique for being the only woman suspected of high-level al-Qaida involvement, would be the first person to face prosecution in a US criminal court after being held in secret intelligence custody. "It could be precedent-setting in terms of transitioning people from extralegal detention into the criminal justice system," said Jonathan Hafetz, director of litigation for the Liberty and National Security Project at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. "You could have a judicial inquiry into how someone was treated at a black site - it would be incredibly valuable." Siddiqui's lawyers acknowledge they cannot prove Siddiqui was illicitly held. A spokeswoman for the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan reiterated the government's assertion that Siddiqui was not in US custody at any time during the period she had vanished from the radar. Court documents make no mention of her whereabouts prior to July. The mere existence of the abduction claim by her lawyers underscores how difficult it may be to navigate such uncertain legal territory. On Thursday, Siddiqui refused to appear before a federal judge in Manhattan for arraignment because she did not want to undergo a mandatory strip search. Siddiqui's attorney, Elizabeth Fink, told the court that her client, who was shot in the abdomen during her struggle with the US interviewers she is charged with threatening, was incapacitated by a surgical wound stretching from her sternum to her pelvic area. In addition, Fink said Siddiqui was mentally incompetent to stand trial because of the treatment she suffered prior to her arrest while she was held in custody "by somebody - Pakistani or American intelligence - on the dark side." In a letter submitted to the court, Fink wrote that Siddiqui cried constantly and asked jail staff to send her food to her son, who was still in Afghanistan, so he would not starve. "Although her concerns about him being starved and tortured sound somewhat paranoid on the surface, it is also possible they represent an accurate portrayal of Ms. Siddiqui's experiences with detainment prior to her arrival in Bureau of Prisons custody," a jail psychologist wrote in a report quoted by Fink. Fink asked the court to transfer Siddiqui to a medical facility run by the Mayo Clinic to be assessed by psychologists experienced in dealing with torture survivors. Prosecutor David Raskin objected, arguing Siddiqui had been told by her attorneys not to cooperate with prison psychiatrists in New York. "We are really in a predicament here," he told US District Court Judge Richard Berman. Berman set a hearing for September 22, and told Fink he wanted to see Siddiqui in his courtroom, in part to convince her that she was in a legitimate legal proceeding where she would be treated fairly. "She could get the opportunity to see that this is a professional setting, that she is, as I said at the beginning of this hearing, presumed innocent," Berman said. Siddiqui faces life imprisonment if convicted of all charges. She came to the US in 1991, first joining her brother in Houston and then transferring to MIT for her undergraduate degree in biology. In Boston, she was active in Muslim student groups, and wrote guides about converting people to Islam. Her passion for her faith didn't stop her from applying to Brandeis, a secular Jewish university, for a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience. "It's just where she was accepted - there's nothing nefarious about it," said her family's attorney, Elaine Sharp. Siddiqui's ex-supervisor, Robert Sekuler, declined comment on his former student through a university spokesman. Siddiqui was publicly identified by US authorities in 2004 as one of seven people the FBI wanted to question about their suspected ties to al-Qaida. Sharp denied any link. Newsweek reported in 2003 that Fleet National Bank investigators discovered that one account used by Siddiqui and her then-husband, Dr. Muhammad Amjad Khan, showed repeated debit-card purchases from stores that "specialize in hi-tech military equipment and apparel," including Black Hawk Industries in Chesapeake, Virginia, and Brigade Quartermasters in Georgia. (Black Hawk's Web site advertises grips, mounts and parts for AK-47s and other military-assault rifles as well as highly specialized combat clothing, including vests designed for bomb disposal.) The Fleet National Bank reports detailing all the transactions were filed with the US Treasury Department, and suggest that Siddiqui and Khan may have been active terror plotters inside the country until as late as the summer of 2002.