The Pakistan embassy has formally asked the United States government to repatriate Dr Aafia Siddiqui to Pakistan where she will be dealt with in accordance with the law.
| What's that word I'm trying to think of? It's right on the tip of my tongue... Oh, yes. No. |
It is unlikely that Pakistan's request will be accepted, since the charge levied against the Pakistani scientist is that she attacked US security personnel with a gun in a Kabul holding facility. The embassy has also asked the US prison authorities not to subject Siddiqui to strip searches, since they are demeaning in the Pakistani and Islamic culture.
| We'll keep that in mind next time Pak primitives are parading somebody naked down the street. |
There is also a move to have the government bear the expenses of her defence. Her family lawyer and a court-appointed one are helping Siddiqui at present. On the advice of her lawyer, Siddiqui did not answer any of the questions put to her by the two embassy officials who met her. They asked her about her whereabouts since her disappearance from Karachi five years ago, the whereabouts of her children and if she had been in detention all along. The US has claimed that she was arrested in Kabul only on July 17.
Siddiqui told the embassy officials that she was grateful to the Pakistan government for having come forward to assist her and thanked the officers who had spent more than two hours with her. Siddiqui was on Tuesday examined by a medical doctor at the Metropolitican Detention Centre according to sources. The order for providing a doctor to examine Siddiqui within 24 hours was given by a US judge at her bail hearing on Monday. |