Aafia Siddiqui: Doctor accused of terrorism calls for presidential pardon before Biden hands over to Trump
A Pakistani neuroscientist held in US custody has told Sky News she has hope she will be freed after “new evidence” emerged which may suggest her innocence.
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, 52, was once one of the most wanted women in the world for her alleged links to al Qaeda‘s leadership and was jailed for 86 years in 2010 for attempting to murder an FBI agent in Afghanistan.
Dr Siddiqui, dubbed “Lady al Qaeda” by her critics, has maintained her innocence and hopes the tide could now be turning.
“I hope I am not forgotten, and I hope that one day soon I will be released,” she exclusively told Sky News, through her lawyer.
“I am… a victim of injustice, pure and simple. Every day is torture… it is not easy.”
She added: “One day, Inshallah (God-willing), I will be released from this torment.”
Dr Siddiqui’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, is calling on outgoing US President Joe Biden to issue a pardon and has submitted a 76,500-word dossier to him.
Sky News has seen this dossier – but has not been able to independently verify all the claims relating to Dr Siddiqui.
President Biden has until Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday to consider the family’s application. So far he has issued 39 pardons and commuted 3,989 sentences.
Dr Aafia Siddiqui pictured in a family photo
‘A catalogue of intelligence errors’
Mr Stafford Smith claims a catalogue of intelligence errors led to her initially becoming a suspect, citing witness testimonies that were unavailable at the time of her trial.
He alleges that, while Dr Siddiqui was visiting Pakistan in 2003, she was abducted with her three children by the country’s inter-services intelligence agency and handed to the CIA, which took her to Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
‘Extraordinary rendition’
The CIA accused Dr Siddiqui of operating for al Qaeda in Afghanistan – and she was the only woman who went through its full extraordinary rendition to torture programme in the early 2000s, Mr Stafford Smith claims.
Extraordinary rendition is a process that often involves a detainee being transferred to secret detention or a third country for the purposes of interrogation.
Clive Stafford Smith says the case is one of the worst miscarriages of justice he’s seen
At the time of Dr Siddiqui’s trial in 2010, the judge said: “There is no credible evidence in the record that the United States officials and/or agencies detained Dr Siddiqui” before her 2008 arrest, adding there is “no evidence in the record to substantiate these allegations or to establish them as fact”.
‘No more of a terrorist than I am’
Mr Stafford Smith says US intelligence “got the wrong end of the stick in the beginning” as agencies thought Dr Siddiqui was a nuclear physicist working on a radioactive bomb “when she really did her PhD in education”.
He says this happened as the US was “terrified of terrorists getting their hands on WMD (weapons of mass destruction)”, adding: “She’s no more of a terrorist than I am”.
Mr Stafford Smith, who has secured the release of 69 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, says Dr Siddiqui’s case is “one of the worst I have seen”.
The US Department of Justice told Sky News, concerning all allegations about Dr Siddiqui, that they “will decline to comment”.
The CIA has not yet got back to our request for comment.
‘Capable and dangerous’
CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou believed unequivocally that Dr Siddiqui had “terrorist sympathies”.
Mr Kiriakou worked for the CIA in counterterrorism until 2004 and told Sky News he “literally knew everything that the CIA was doing around the world”.
Protests have been held calling for Dr Siddiqui’s release
“One of the things that the CIA concentrated very heavily on in the months and years after the 9/11 attacks was the task of identifying al Qaeda’s couriers,” he said.
“We just had no clear idea how al Qaeda’s leadership was communicating.
“We had heard over the years of a woman, a female courier, Aafia Siddiqui. Many people called her Lady al Qaeda, just because we didn’t know much about her.
“Her name had popped up on many occasions.
“We would hear her name mentioned as someone who could be trusted. She was presented to us as one of the most capable and dangerous figures in that movement.”
CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou says Dr Siddiqui used to be referred to as ‘Lady al Qaeda’
Mr Kiriakou denies the CIA tortured Dr Siddiqui in Afghanistan while he worked for the agency, saying: “We did not torture women.”
“If Aafia Siddiqui had been captured in 2003 and had been sent to a black site, I would have known it,” he added.
“I would have briefed it to the director of the CIA. We didn’t have her.”
However, he says it was “not beneath” CIA officers “to lie in official reporting cables” and that “the CIA routinely got things wrong when it came to other high-value targets”.
‘A very bad cover-up’
Dr Siddiqui’s sister, Fowzia, says she was a “victim of the war on terror… of a very bad cover-up”.
Speaking to Sky News from her home in Karachi, Pakistan, she said Dr Siddiqui was being “victimised for what a group of fanatics did some time ago… all the innocent people who fit a certain profile have been victimised”.
Fowzia Siddiqui says her sister was ‘victimised for what a group of fanatics did some time ago’
Fowzia has spent almost two decades campaigning for her sister’s freedom and helped locate and raise her children, Ahmed and Mariam, after their alleged abduction in 2003.
Dr Siddiqui’s youngest son, Suleiman, was just six months old when he was last seen around this time – and the Siddiqui family fear he was killed during the alleged abduction.
Pakistan’s inter-services intelligence has been contacted for comment.
“I know she’s innocent,” says Fowzia. “If I knew there was even a glimpse of guilt there I would not have put my whole life on hold for this. She doesn’t deserve to be where she is.”
World
Up to a million Palestinians could be ‘permanently relocated’ to war-torn Libya under US plans
Up to a million Palestinians could be permanently relocated from devastated Gaza to war-torn Libya under plans being worked on by Donald Trump’s administration, NBC News reports.
The idea has been discussed with Libya’s leadership, sources told Sky’s US partner network, and would potentially see billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds released.
The North African country remains divided in two – nearly 14 years after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi sparked a civil war – with two rival governments fighting for control.
It comes as Israel continues a campaign of airstrikes on Gaza, with 93 people killed and hundreds injured on Friday, according to local medics.
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Sky’s team saw bodies arrive at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital
No final agreement on any Libya plans have been reached, sources told NBC News, and US government agencies did not respond to requests for comment from the news outlet.
Previous suggestions to resettle Palestinians from Gaza – voluntarily or otherwise – have provoked international outcry, particularly from Arab states who likely will play a role in rebuilding the enclave after any permanent ceasefire deal.
And Libya is far from a safe nation, according to the US State Department’s own travel advice, which says Americans should not travel to the country “due to crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.
President Trump, speaking on the final day of his Middle East trip, said he was looking to resolve a range of global crises, including Gaza.
“We’re looking at Gaza,” he said. “And we’ve got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people are – there’s a lot of bad things going on.”
An Israeli tank nears the border with Gaza. Pic: Reuters
There had been hopes that his tour of the region could increase the chances of a ceasefire deal or prompt Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza that is preventing humanitarian aid from getting in.
But instead Israel has continued to launch airstrikes on the territory, killing more than 250 people in the last two days, according to Hamas-run health authorities.
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The Israeli military, which had dropped leaflets on the northern town of Beit Lahia ordering residents to leave, said their airforce had struck more than 150 military targets across Gaza in recent days.
This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.
Israeli officials said the latest strikes were a prelude to a larger military campaign in Gaza aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages.
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Trump wraps up Middle East tour
Read more:
How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign
Trump risks becoming impatient and losing interest in Gaza
Ahmed Abu Riziq, founder of the Gaza Great Minds Foundation, which seeks to give children access to education in Gaza, said “the hell doors opened” in the last few days.
Speaking to Sky News from Gaza City, he said: “Myself with my family, we had to flee today from some certain areas in northern Gaza City… people are running in the streets. They don’t know where to go or where to sleep at night. So it’s really catastrophic.”
“No food is entering Gaza,” he added, saying that people are dying from hunger.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this month that Israel plans to seize all of Gaza and hold it indefinitely.
Tom Fletcher, head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, warned the Security Council this week it must “act now” to “prevent genocide” – a claim Israel vehemently denies.
Russia and Ukraine failed to agree to a ceasefire in their first direct talks since 2022 – as European leaders called Moscow’s approach “unacceptable” after the discussions lasted less than two hours and Vladimir Putin stayed away.
The meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, was set up at short notice on President Putin‘s behest, but he declined a challenge from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet him in person and instead sent relatively junior representatives.
A source in the Ukrainian team told Sky News that Russia had threatened “eternal war” during the talks.
They said the Russians were not ready to talk about technical details of a ceasefire and were waiting for superiors to approve them.
Latest updates on Istanbul talks
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan chairs a meeting between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul. Pic: Reuters
Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each in what would be the biggest such exchange yet of the conflict.
But Kyiv wants the West to impose tighter sanctions unless Moscow accepts a proposal from Donald Trump for a 30-day ceasefire.
President Zelenskyy said after the meeting that he had spoken to Mr Trump by phone – alongside Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland – who all met in Albania on Friday.
In a post on X, he said Ukraine was “ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace” and that “tough sanctions must follow” if Russia continues to resist a month-long truce.
The Ukrainian delegation. Pic: Reuters
The Russian delegation. Pic: Reuters
Frustration over Russia‘s perceived stalling in holding serious negotiations was also clear from the European leaders gathered in Tirana.
“The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time,” said Sir Keir.
“So as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskyy and that call with President Trump we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.”
Read more:
Istanbul talks symbolically important – but revealed stark reality
Don’t get your hopes up of talks Trump-Putin talks anytime soon
The talks were held in Dolmabache Palace in Istanbul. Pic: AP
The UK prime minister said the no-show by Russia’s leader was “more evidence that Putin is not serious about peace” and has “been dragging his heels”.
NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, who was also in Albania, said President Putin had made a “big mistake” by sending low-level delegates to Istanbul.
A list of representatives ahead of the meeting listed presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign minister Galuzin Mikhail Yuryevich and deputy defence chief Alexander Fomin.
Ukraine’s delegation was led by defence minister Rustem Umerov.
President Zelenskyy had called the Russian team “a theatre prop” ahead of the summit in the Dolmabahce Palace.
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Ukrainian ‘despair’ over missing civilians
However, Turkey’s foreign minister heralded it as “an important day for world peace” and said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to swap 1,000 POWs each as a “confidence-building measure”.
Hakan Fidan shared a picture of the delegations and said they had “agreed to share with the other side in writing the conditions that would make it possible to reach a ceasefire”.
Russia’s Vladimir Medinsky said his team had “taken note” of the Ukrainian request for direct talks between Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy.
“We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail,” said Mr Medinsky.
Hopes ahead of the meeting were low after Mr Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, played down the prospect of meaningful progress.
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Trump on meeting Putin: ‘As soon as we can set it up’
The US president told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together”, while Mr Rubio said a “breakthrough” was unlikely until the US and Russian presidents meet.
No date for such a meeting has been proposed, but Mr Trump has said it will happen “as soon as we can set it up”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that top-level talks were “certainly needed” but arranging it would take time.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was a notable absentee, despite attending Ukraine-focused talks with the US in Saudi Arabia in February.
Russia has so far failed to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire – proposed by European leaders who have threatened Moscow with “massive” sanctions if it doesn’t sign up. The US also supports the plan.
The Kremlin has ambitions to keep swathes of Ukrainian land as part of any long-term truce, an idea that Kyiv firmly rejects.
Russia also wants an end to Ukraine’s NATO ambitions and a promise it will stay neutral.
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