Dr Aafia’s jail term is actually a death sentence: Wajihuddin

Successive goverments in Pakistan came in for a severe tongue-lashing from jurists and political parties for their lackadaisical approach towards the issue of Pakistani scientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui incarcerated in the US after being given an 86 years jail sentence by a US court.

They were addressing a news conference at the Karachi Press Club on Saturday afternoon.

Wajihuddin Ahmed, the retired chief justice of the Sindh High Court and judge of the Supreme Court, said: “I don’t see this as a life sentence. I see it as a death sentence, because 86 years is not normally even the life span of a human being. And here she has been sentenced to 86 years in jail. That means by the time she’s released, she’ll be over a 120 years old. Isn’t that strange?” he remarked.

“Aafia is not being bothered for because she is ‘the daughter of the nation’ and not the daughter of a VIP like a prime minister or a very high-ranking political leader. That’s why our governments are least bothered by the shame and humiliation that has been heaped n Pakistan.”

Justice Wajihuddin said that Aafia’s case was very simple and straightforward; the trial had to be conducted in a locale where the crime was committed. As such, he said, Aafia’s trial should have been conducted in Afghanistan. “So the legality of this verdict is totally void,” he said.

Our rulers, he said, just did not have the gall to speak for their own citizen. They just did not have the courage to look the US in the eye despite having a very just case.

He said he had written to ex-president Barack Obama last year and there seemed to be some positive portents, but then again the ball being in the court of the government of Pakistan, it was supposed to follow up the initiative but they were least bothered.

He suggested that the Haebes Corpus was a very effective instrument in Anglo-Saxon law for human rights.  A Haebes Corpus petition should be filed with the government of the US to at least find out the whereabouts of the woman and whether she was dead or alive.

Pasban head Altaf Shakoor was really bitter, most of all at the rulers. He said there had been hundreds of demonstration for Dr Aafia’s release, but the governments concerned did not even bat an eyelid. 

He cited the case of Raymond Davis, who murdered Pakistanis on Pakistani soil, yet his escape from Pakistan was manipulated by the then rulers. Unlike Dr Aafia, he was not sentenced. He suggested that our government go to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the issue.

Barrister Naseem Bajwa, who had flown in from the UK and drove straight from the airport to the Karachi Press Club (KPC), said that there was a flicker of hope in the Obama tenure that the issue would be amicably settled but that too was based on the Government of Pakistan writing to the US on the issue. 

A delegation, he said, was tentatively formed comprising a superior judiciary judge from Pakistan, British journalist Yvonne Ridley and other famous personages from Europe and the US. However, he said that it was conditional on the Government of Pakistan writing to the US government, which never happened. So that plan also went by the board, he said.

Maulan Asadulah Bhutto said that Dr Aafia’s case had put the world conscience on trial. He said that while a “criminal” like Raymond Davis could be allowed to escape after having committed murders in

cold blood in open view of all, Dr Aafia, despite being absolutely innocent with none of the charges against her even remotely proved, was being subjected to this barbaric fate.

All the speakers ridiculed the excuse offered by the US government to the effect that Dr Aafia had snatched a rifle from an American prison guard and tried to kill him. They said it was absolutely laughable that a frail woman, undergoing the rigours of incarceration for five years would have the strength to snatch a rifle from a brawny army captain. They said that while Nawaz Sharif posed as the benefactor of the people, he was totally silent on the issue.