Biography
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was a Pakistani neuroscientist and MIT graduate who came in 2003 she was kidnapped by US and Pakistani agents while at her family home in Pakistan and secretly held at the U.S Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for five years without charges. In 2008, while being interrogated she was shot in the stomach by her interrogator. Military officers then claimed she had taken a soldiers rifle and fired upon soldiers and was shot in self defense. The rifle she allegedly obtained did not have her fingerprints, nor was there evidence the gun was even ever fired. Dr. Siddiqui was charged with attempted murder over the allegation she fired at soldiers and was sentenced to 86 years in prison which she's now serving in Fort Worth, Texas. Former U.S Attorney General Ramsey Clark described her case as the “worst case of individual injustice I have ever witnessed.” and multiple members of the British Parliament petitioned President Barack Obama for her release arguing her case lacked any concrete evidence that a crime was ever committed.
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.
Support campaign links: Aafia Movement and DFW Free Aafia Siddiqui.
