Pakistani woman suspected of al-Qaeda links charged in N.Y.
An MIT-educated Pakistani woman appeared in a U.S. federal court Tuesday to face charges she tried to kill U.S. employees in a gunfight in Afghanistan after police said they discovered suspicious documents about explosives and landmarks in her handbag.
Aafia Siddiqui, wearing a burgundy head scarf and recovering from a gunshot wound, was ordered held without bail on one count each of attempted murder and assault stemming from the July incident. She was arrested Monday in Afghanistan and flown to New York to be formally charged.
If convicted, Siddiqui faces up to 20 years in prison on each charge.
At a 2004 news conference, then-attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller III identified Siddiqui, 36, as one of seven people the FBI wanted to question about their suspected ties to al-Qaeda. Her family has vehemently denied Siddiqui had any links to the Islamist militant group.
U.S. authorities said at the time that Siddiqui had received a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had written a doctoral thesis on neurological sciences at Brandeis University, outside Boston. They said they believed she returned to Pakistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks and later vanished for several years.
Though they never alleged Siddiqui was a member of al-Qaeda, they said they believed she could be a "fixer," someone with knowledge of the United States who supported other operatives trying to slip into the country and plot attacks.
Prosecutors allege Siddiqui was stopped by police on July 17 outside a government building in central Afghanistan's Ghazni province. Police searched her handbag and said they discovered documents containing recipes for explosives and chemical weapons and describing "various landmarks in the U.S., including New York City," according to a criminal complaint, which did not identify the landmarks.
Siddiqui also was carrying "chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars," the complaint said without elaborating.
When asked by a federal magistrate why her client preferred not to stand during Tuesday's hearing in New York, a defence attorney said Siddiqui had been shot.
"She has a wound, and it's oozing."
Magistrate Ronald Ellis set a Monday hearing to determine whether Siddiqui should be released on bail. He also said he would ask prison officials to make sure she was receiving proper care.
A day after Siddiqui was stopped by Afghan authorities and as a team of FBI agents and U.S. military officers prepared to question her, Siddiqui snatched a soldier's rifle and pointed it at an army captain, prosecutors alleged. An interpreter pushed the rifle aside as she fired two shots, which missed, they said. One of two shots fired in response by a soldier hit her in the hip.
Even after being hit, Siddiqui struggled and shouted in English that she wanted "to kill Americans" before the officers subdued her, the complaint said.
Conflicting accounts of alleged attack
Asked by the judge if she understood the charges, Siddiqui replied in a soft voice, "I understand them."
At the time of the incident, Afghan officials gave conflicting accounts of what transpired between Siddiqui and the U.S. interrogators.
Gen. Khan Mohammad Mujahid, police chief in central Ghazni province, initially said police argued with the Americans over giving up custody of Siddiqui. But he later said there was no argument and that the woman lunged at one of the U.S. soldiers, drawing the gunshot.
U.S. military officials declined comment at the time.
On Tuesday, an Afghan official in Ghazni said Siddiqui took the weapon while U.S. officials were arguing with Afghan security officials over the custody rights. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue.
Siddiqui's defence attorney, Elizabeth Fink, argued that alleging a "90-pound woman" could incite the violence claimed in the complaint was "patently absurd."
"We don't know what happened," Fink said. "All I know is that I have a person who's shot here."
In court, prosecutors said that Siddiqui was given good medical care and that a physician had accompanied her on the flight to the U.S. They did not discuss the case any further.