The harsh sentence drew condemnation from Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia. who called it outrageous.
Aafia Siddiqui, 38, was sentenced in US District Court in Manhattan by Judge Richard M. Berman, who said “significant incarceration is appropriate.”
“Don't get angry,” Siddiqui said in court to her supporters after the sentence was announced. “Forgive Judge Berman.”
Berman responded, saying: “I wish more defendants would feel the way that you do.”
The sentencing capped a strange legal odyssey that began two summers ago when Siddiqui turned up in Afghanistan. In February, she was convicted of grabbing a rifle and trying to shoot US interrogators in Afghanistan while yelling, “Death to Americans!”
She denounced the trial and said an appeal would be "a waste of time. I appeal to God."
The conviction touched off protests in Pakistan that resumed Thursday as hundreds chanted “Free Aafia!” at a rally in Karachi. Others demonstrated outside the Manhattan courthouse.
During a statement to the court Thursday, Siddiqui carried a message of peace. “I do not want any bloodshed. I do not want any misunderstanding. I really want to make peace and end the wars,” she said.
Siddiqui said she was particularly upset by overseas reports that she was being tortured in a US prison. She said she was actually being treated well.
“I am not sad. I am not distressed ... They are not torturing me,” she said. “This is a myth and lie and it's being spread among the Muslims.”
Prosecutors said Siddiqui is a cold-blooded radical who deserves life in prison. In court papers, they cited threatening notes Siddiqui was carrying at the time of her detention. They directly quoted one as referencing “a ‘mass casualty attack’ ... NY CITY monuments: Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge,” and another musing how a dirty bomb would spread more fear than death. They claimed the notes, along with the fact that she was carrying sodium cyanide, showed she was not an accidental menace.
Defense lawyers argued there was no physical evidence, such as fingerprints or gunpowder traces, to show Siddiqui even grabbed the rifle.
Family members and some human rights groups claimed Siddiqui was imprisoned by US forces after disappearing along with her three children in Pakistan in 2003 and that she is now mentally disturbed.
The defense had asked the judge for a sentence closer to 12 years behind bars. Her lawyers argued in court papers that their client's outburst inside a cramped Afghan outpost was a spontaneous “freak out,” born of mental illness not militancy.
The trial failed to shed light on the mystery of what had happened to the petite, academically brilliant mother of three. Human rights groups have long speculated she may have been secretly imprisoned and tortured at the US base in Bagram, Afghanistan.
Siddiqui vanished in Pakistan at a time of intense efforts by US-backed local security forces to root out Al-Qaeda. And relatives believe she may have been grabbed in one of the operations. But the US military has denied she was ever held at the base.
While two of Siddiqui's children are missing — one presumed dead — one son Mohammad Ahmed, a teenager, now lives with her relatives in Karachi.
The sentence was termed as "shocking and anti-Muslim" by Pakistani expatriates across Saudi Arabia.
"The sentence is as much a joke as Aafia's conviction," said Amir Mohammed Khan, chairman of Pakistan Journalists Forum, Jeddah. "This amounts to victimization and exposes the weakness of the Pakistani government."
Ehsanul Haque, convener of Jeddah-based Pakistan Repatriation Council, said: "The conviction and sentence are both questionable. There was no transparency in the judicial process. There was apparently no Pakistani lawyer to defend Aafia. This amounts to a black spot in the US judicial system."
"It's highly condemnable," said Alkhobar-based Pakistani Community Council President Sajid Abbasi. "This is war against Muslims. America should be ashamed of its despicable act against an innocent woman."
Pakistan expatriate Bashir Bhatti called the sentence outrageous. "First they kidnapped her in Karachi, took her out illegally, tortured her at Bagram and finally sentenced her to 86 years. What a travesty of justice."
Alkhobar-based Saudi academic and human rights promoter Abeer A. Albassam said: "My heart goes out to Aafia's mother and children. This is so tragic. And these Americans describe themselves as the ultimate lovers of freedom and justice."
