New York, August 20: The government of Pakistan is seeking new lawyers to represent a U.S.-trained Pakistani neuroscientist who faces a possible life prison sentence for the attempted murder of U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan.
Aafia Siddiqui, 37, who the U.S. government has accused of links with al Qaeda, was recently ruled fit to stand trial after a hearing in which her defense lawyers argued she was delusional, while prosecution witnesses suggested she was exaggerating a mental disorder.
Following that ruling, the Pakistani government elected “to retain counsel on Dr. Siddiqui’s behalf,” according to court paper’s recently filed by lawyers seeking to act on behalf of Siddiqui. Her current lawyer does not object.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman this week ordered a hearing to take place within the next few weeks to determine who will represent Siddiqui.
A spokesperson for the Pakistan Embassy in Washington was not immediately available for comment.
Siddiqui, who lived in the United States between 1991 and 2002, also filed a rambling two-page letter to the judge in which she did not address the issue of who should represent her.
“I really am innocent of the charges stated against me and I was in prison before that too and tortured badly to make me state what they wanted me to — and my children,” she said towards the end of the letter.
Prosecutors say Siddiqui grabbed a U.S. warrant officer’s rifle in mid-2008 while she was detained for questioning in Afghanistan and fired it at a team of FBI agents and military personnel, but no one was hit. The warrant officer then shot and wounded her with his pistol, the U.S. says.
Items found in her handbag when she was detained in Afghanistan included handwritten notes for a “mass casualty attack” at locations in New York, according to her indictment.
-Agencies