ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Parliament demanded yesterday repatriation from the United States of a Pakistani woman suspected of links to Al-Qaeda and facing charges of attempting to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Aafia Siddiqui, 36, a US-trained neuroscientist, was flown to the United States from Afghanistan early this month and was formally charged before a New York court. “We call upon the federal government to take up the matter with US authorities,” said Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, while reading out a resolution adopted unanimously by the National Assembly.
Qureshi also asked the US authorities to immediately provide necessary medical assistance to Siddiqui, shot in the abdomen when US officials say she tried to fire on a group of American troops who wanted to question her in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province.
Afghan police arrested Siddiqui after becoming suspicious of her behavior outside the provincial governor’s compound in Ghazni on July 17, according to the US Department of Justice.
