Dr Aafia Siddiqui has agreed to file plea against her sentence: FM tells Senate
ISLAMABAD (92 News) – Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that Dr Aafia Siddiqui had agreed to file a petition against her sentence.
In a written reply during the Senate session on Wednesday, he said that only Aafia Siddiqui could make a decision on her appeal according to the US judicial system.
He said that the government was completely aware of the Aafia Siddiqui case. “We have continuously been raising the issue from the United States,” he stated.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Siddiqui told the House that a committee had gone to the US to meet Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
Senator Talha Mahmood said that nothing is being done in this regard. “The Aafia Siddiqui case should be sent to standing committee concerned,” he added.
Azam Swati told the House the government had raised the issue at every forum. “My children and son-in-law are working on the case in America,” he said.
Swati said that the case had been sent to the standing committee concerned.
On September 23, 2010, a court in New York had sentenced Dr Aafia, an MIT graduate, to 86 years in prison.
Her sympathisers claim that she was arrested in Pakistan and handed over to intelligence agencies who then transferred her into US custody. Both US and Pakistani officials, however, say that she was arrested in Afghanistan.
Dr Aafia allegedly went missing for five years before she was discovered in Afghanistan. It is said that she snatched a gun during interrogation in Ghazni and tried to shoot a US soldier. She has also been accused of working for Al Qaeda.
