Politics | 11/20/2008 9:35 am
Aafia Siddiqui Was Not Tortured, Said Prosecutor

The U.S. government hasn’t found a "shred of evidence" that the Pakistani woman accused of trying to kill U.S. personnel while detained in Afghanistan was tortured in the five years before her arrest, a prosecutor said yesterday. This recent development comes after a court-ordered psychologist found Siddiqui mentally unfit for trial.
According to reports, Siddiqui has been missing for five years along with her three children. The MIT graduate and American-trained neuroscientist was finally found in Afghanistan in August. When brought into questioning, she grabbed a gun and fired at U.S. soldiers and FBI agents. Siddiqui, once on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, was brought to the States to stand trial.
However, the Associated Press reports that Assistant U.S. Attorney David Raskin said that Siddiqui went into hiding around 9/11 and around the time she married an al-Qaida operative. He found no evidence that she was being detained. Siddiqui’s lawer, Elizabeth Fink, has said in the past that she believed her client was tortured while in Southwest Asian and U.S. custody. Fink also believes Siddiqui was forced to undergo "strip searches" that violated a Muslim woman’s religious beliefs.























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