Hearing slated for today for former Boston resident suspected of Al Qaeda ties

August 5, 2008 01:21 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Globe Staff

A Pakistani neuroscientist who once lived and studied in the Boston area and was accused of belonging to a Boston-based Al Qaeda cell is slated to appear today in federal court in New York on charges that she tried to shoot Army and FBI officials who were interviewing her after her arrest in Afghanistan.

Aafia Siddiqui

Aafia Siddiqui allegedly yelled "allahu akbar" and grabbed a soldier's rifle and fired two shots before she was shot herself in the July 18 incident. She is to be arraigned this afternoon, said Janice Oh, a spokeswoman for Michael Garcia, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

"Despite being shot, Siddiqui struggled with the officers when they tried to subdue her; she struck and kicked them while shouting in English that she wanted to kill Americans," an FBI agent said in the complaint filed against Siddiqui, who faces charges of assaulting the Army and FBI officials with a dangerous weapon and attempted murder of federal officials.

Siddiqui had been picked up on July 17 by national police in Afghanistan outside the compound of the governor of Ghazni Province. Her handbag contained "numerous documents describing the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, and other weapons involving biological material and radiological agents," the complaint alleged. "Siddiqui was also in possession of numerous chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars."

Siddiqui, who lived in Boston and, at one point, in suburban Lexington, studied at Brandeis University as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was also active in preaching the Muslim faith at a Boston mosque in the 1990s and one of her projects was distributing Korans to Massachusetts prison inmates.

She disappeared with her three children while visiting her parents' home in Karachi, Pakistan, in March 2003, around the same time the FBI announced that it wanted to question her.

Military documents declassified in recent years suggest that Siddiqui is suspected of having ties to several key terrorism suspects being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
She is believed to have links to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and allegedly arranged travel documents for another suspected terrorist.

Papers in Guantanamo Bay also indicate that she married Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, an alleged Al Qaeda facilitator who intended to blow up gas stations or poison water reservoirs in the United States.

For five years, US and Pakistani authorities denied knowing her whereabouts. But human rights groups and Siddiqui's relatives have long suspected that she had been captured in Karachi and secretly taken into custody. Elaine Whitfield Sharp, a lawyer for Siddiqui's family, said she didn't believe that officials had just found Siddiqui, the Globe reported Monday. "I believe that she was there all along," Sharp said.