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Pakistani woman extradited to the US

The family of a Pakistani neurosurgeon expressed shock yesterday after it emerged she had been extradited to the US on charges of shooting at US soldiers while in detention in Afghanistan.

Mother-of-three Aafia Siddiqui, 36, disappeared from the Pakistani port city of Karachi in 2003 and appeared on a list of US suspects linked to al-Qaeda the following year.

Relatives and rights groups had expressed fears she was being held in a secret US prison.

“We are very shocked and depressed. It is very alarming for the family,” said her sister, Fauzia Siddiqui, a medical doctor living in Karachi.

“Her absence has given us great pain for the last five years and we have been looking for her and her children,” she said.

She said she would give further details at a news conference later yesterday.

Aafia Siddiqui, a former US resident, was arrested last month in Afghanistan, said the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia.

The MIT-educated Siddiqui Siddiqui was stopped by police on July 17 outside a government building in central Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province, a criminal complaint said. Police searched her handbag and discovered documents containing recipes for explosives and chemical weapons and describing “various landmarks in the United States, including New York City,” said the complaint, which did not identify the landmarks.

She also was carrying “chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars,” the complaint said.
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