Biography
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was a Pakistani neuroscientist and MIT graduate Aafia Siddiqui is a US-educated Pakistani neuroscientist who came to the US in 1990, then returned to Pakistan with her family in 2002. In 2003 she was kidnapped by US and Pakistani agents and held in Bagram Air Base through 2008. She was convicted in the United States on February 3, 2010 of attempted murder and other offenses arising from the July 2008 incident in Afghanistan – though she was the person shot – and sentenced to 86 years in prison in Fort Worth, Texas. The weapon she allegedly fired in the interrogation room did not have her fingerprints, nor was there evidence the gun was fired.
Four British Parliamentarians wrote to President Barack Obama that “there was an utter lack of concrete evidence tying Dr Siddiqui to the weapon she allegedly fired at a US officer,” and that she should be freed immediately. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark described Aafia’s plight as the “worst case of individual injustice I have ever witnessed.”
Custody-phase review October 13, 2026: The Second Circuit opinion distinguishes July 17, 2008 Afghan detention, guarded hospital custody, and August 4 transfer to the United States. A contemporaneous August 11 report reproducing counsel Elaine Whitfield Sharp's letter confirms MDC Brooklyn pretrial detention and counsel's August 8 attempted visit. The U.S. prison phase is therefore recorded as August 2008, month precision, replacing the erroneous September 2010 start. The first of August is a storage placeholder, not an asserted admission day. The sentencing announcement confirms September 23, 2010. The unsupported New Jersey state-prison assignment and exact duration are cleared. No release is asserted.
Sentencing and custody chronology
The September 23, 2010 sentencing announcement, pages 1–2, dates the jury verdict to February 3, 2010 and the 86-year sentence to September 23, 2010. July 2008 concerns Afghan detention and the incident prosecuted, not the conviction year. The 2008 annual report, printed page II-4, describes charges then pending. The case charge label has been made specific; existing custody dates and their precision remain unchanged.
The birthday entry identifies Siddiqui at FMC Carswell, prisoner number 90279-054, serving an eighty-six-year nominal sentence. This is a dated confinement snapshot; the biographical excerpt supplies no new actual-service total, transfer day or release.
The Dragons Fire, March 15–April 15, 2024, vol. 72, PDF page 12.
