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
US blocks Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other officials from United Nations’ annual meeting in New York
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other officials have been blocked from attending September’s annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has revoked the US visas of delegates from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and denied others from applying for one.
It is the latest step by Donald Trump’s administration to target Palestinians with visa restrictions, and follows the suspension of a programme to allow injured children from Gaza to receive treatment in the US.
Mahmoud Abbas addressed the general assembly in 2024, but is barred from next month’s meeting. Pic: Reuters
“It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” a statement from the US State Department said.
It added that, to be considered partners for peace, both groups “must consistently repudiate terrorism, and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by US law and as promised by the PLO”.
Offensive will cause ‘intolerable deaths’
Several US allies, including France, Malta, and Australia have announced plans to recognise Palestine as a state at September’s United Nations General Assembly. Canada and the UK will too, unless Israel meets certain conditions.
Israel declared Gaza’s largest city a dangerous combat zone on Friday.
The army launched a planned offensive that has drawn international condemnation.
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Thick smoke rises from Gaza City after Israeli strikes
Foreign ministers from Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia and Spain released a joint statement saying the military operations in Gaza City will cause “intolerable deaths of innocent Palestinian civilians”.
Gaza latest: Israel’s Gaza City offensive condemned
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in Gaza City while enduring famine.
An Israeli armoured vehicle in northern Gaza on Friday. Pic: AP
Palestinians ride a truck carrying humanitarian aid in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Riyad Mansour, said Mr Abbas had planned to lead the delegation to the UN meetings and was expected to address the general assembly at the general debate, which begins on 23 September.
He was also expected to attend a high-level meeting co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia on 22 September about a two-state solution, a broad idea involving Israel coexisting with an independent Palestinian state.
The State of Palestine is an observer member of the UN, meaning it can speak at meetings but not vote on resolutions.
The State of Palestine cannot vote on UN resolutions. Pic: AP
US decision ‘contravenes international law’
The Palestinian Authority “expressed its deep regret and astonishment” at the visa decision, calling it “a violation of US commitments” as the host of the UN, and claiming it “contravenes international law”.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the world body would be seeking clarification in the “hope that this will be resolved”.
Hundreds of diplomats left when Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu began speaking at the general assembly in 2024. Pic: Reuters
The State Department said that the Palestinian Authority’s mission to the UN, comprising officials who are permanently based there, would not be included in the restrictions.
Under a 1947 UN agreement, the US is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York.
But Washington has said it can deny visas for security, extremism and foreign policy reasons.
Read more from Sky News:
Analysis: Israel is killing a lot of journalists
Hospitals ‘overwhelmed’ by malnutrition cases
Tony Blair meets Trump over Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The death toll in Gaza has now risen to 63,025, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
It also reported five more malnutrition-related deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number during the war to 322, with 121 of them children.
World
Brazil implores businesses to attend major climate summit, despite ‘second thoughts’ amid Trump backlash
The Brazilian hosts of the biggest climate meeting of the year have implored businesses to attend in November, amid concerns some are backing away from the climate agenda into the shadow of Donald Trump.
In an interview with Sky News, Ana Toni, chief executive of the COP30 climate summit in November, admitted some companies were having “second thoughts” about the global switch to green economies because policymakers were creating uncertainty.
The US President Donald Trump has been attacking wind farms and waging tariff wars that could slow the transition to green energy.
Banks including HSBC and Barclays have ditched a net zero alliance set up just four years ago by Mark Carney, now the Canadian Prime Minister.
Ana Toni, Brazil’s climate secretary, is chief executive of the COP30 climate talks. Pic: Reuters
But even before Trump took office, tech companies were quietly dropping climate targets to prioritise energy-hungry AI, and other businesses were “greenhushing” their climate initiatives for fear of backlash.
In this environment, there are fears fewer business leaders will attend the annual talks, which are also being hosted in a city on the edge of the Amazon that hasn’t enough hotel rooms.
On Friday, the COP30 team wrote to business leaders urging them to “step forward, not back” and travel to Belem, despite “logistical challenges” and the “background of systemic uncertainty”.
Ana Toni told Sky News: “We are very concerned that the enabling conditions must be there so that the private sector can also deliver where they do best, which is bringing in technology, bringing innovation and accelerating the process of decarbonisation.”
In August the share price of Danish wind farm developer plummeted after the US halted its Rhode Island wind farm, while the British Tories and Reform parties are also attacking net zero.
Ana Toni met with King Charles and leaders of other COP summits at Clarence House last year. Pic: Reuters
But Ms Toni there is “nothing to panic [about], because we can see that the transition is inevitable,” citing major progress in China, India and Europe and Brazil.
Referring to the US’s withdrawal from the COP process, she said: “198 countries minus one is not zero. And we will put all our efforts of working with the 197 countries that want to go forward and want to protect their population.”
“Climate action is not only [still] cool, it is necessary,” Ms Toni said.
“We all need to face reality. We are going through a huge climate crisis… If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Companies understand that.”
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