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Federal judge rules Pakistan woman alleged to be al Qaeda agent fit to stand trial

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday ruled that Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman with alleged ties to al Qaeda, is mentally competent to stand trial. Siddiqui was charged in August with assault and the attempted murder of a US officer after allegedly opening fire on agents at the Afghan detention facility where she was being held last July. Judge Richard Berman had entered a not guilty plea and ordered a psychiatric evaluation of Siddiqui in September. The prosecution had requested the psychiatric evaluation on suspicions that Siddiqui was mentally unfit to stand trial, with defense attorney Elizabeth Fink agreeing that such evaluation was appropriate. Berman set a trial date for October 19. Siddiqui, who was extradited to the US in August, was shot in the abdomen during the July skirmish leading to her charges. She has since refused proper medical care as well as communication with her legal counsel. Siddiqui's family has insisted that she is not an al Qaeda agent and that the FBI has publicized misleading information about her. They say that Siddiqui, a former student at Brandeis University and MIT in Boston, may have been a victim of extraordinary rendition after she vanished from Karachi, Pakistan in 2003. Defense lawyers have alleged that Siddiqui may have been wrongly detained and tortured at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. Siddiqui was taken into custody in July after she was found loitering outside a provincial governor's compound with suspicious items in her handbag.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on July 30, 2009 (boomark / email).