ISLAMABAD: Senator Ishaq Dar said Thursday that the incoming government led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will resume talks with US authorities to secure the release of Aafia Siddique, a Pakistani neuroscientist who has been imprisoned in the United States for more than a decade.
Dar stated in his Senate statement that the PML-N government met with US officials in 2013, and that then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made a request at the White House, but it was not approved.
“I had 3 detailed meetings with Antony Blinken [secretary of state] and I put all my efforts for the return of our daughter to Pakistan and gave many solutions but, unfortunately, nothing happened,” the senator was quoted as saying.
Dar stated that this problem will be a top priority for the incoming cabinet, and that every effort would be made to reengage the US administration on this matter.
He stated that her sentence might possibly be served in Pakistan, and that the US administration would be petitioned to relocate her there.
Senator Mushtaq Ahmad of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) recommended four political options for Siddiqui’s return to Pakistan after returning from the United States.
He also indicated a wish to send Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar with the same letter, which contained four political options for ensuring Afia Siddiqui’s release.
Who is Dr. Aafia Siddiqui?
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a US-educated Pakistani scientist, was convicted in 2010 for 86 years by a New York federal district court on charges of attempted murder and assault stemming from an incident during an interview with the US authorities in Ghazni, Afghanistan—charges that she denied.
She was the first woman to be suspected of Al-Qaeda links by the US, but never convicted of it.
