Can govt secure Dr Aafia’s release?

While Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi ruled out the possibility of any bargain with the United States over the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving 86 years sentence in the US since 2010, he assured that his government would bring her back through diplomatic channels.

Can he do it and that too without a bargain or extradition? One still awaits the US response on a formal request, made by Pakistan. Those who have been following this case for long believe that the US can gain lots of goodwill if it releases her even on humanitarian grounds?

There are divided opinion in Pakistan over the question of exchange of Dr Aafia with Shakeel Afridi. However, Mr Qureshi's statement has ended all speculations regarding her release through her exchange with Dr Shakeel Afridi, whose extradition the US had repeatedly sought since his arrest in connection with Abbottabad operation in which al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, was killed.

However, if such a demand would come from the US, the government would not take the decision without engaging or seeking consent of the military leadership. A retired Lt-General, Mr Lodhi, in an interview with a private TV channel recently advised the government not to bargain on Shakeel Afridi.

So, what other options are available, which the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan could use to get her released, considering the kind of strained relationship between the countries at the moment.

Mr Qureshi was in the US for about a week during the UN General Assembly session and there were no reports that her case was raised at that time and if it was at any level, at least there were no media reports.

This case suddenly came to limelight in the last few weeks, but Dr Aafia's family in Pakistan has no option for years but to wait and remain hopeful of her release. In the past, her sister, Dr Fouzia Siddiqui, who has been struggling for her release. She approached almost every government since her sister’s mysterious disappearance from Karachi, in 2003. Once again, she is hoping for a breakthrough. “We can only hope that something good will happen, this time," she said.

The Pakistan Foreign Office has now confirmed that a formal request has been made to the US authorities concerned. But, as situation stands today, it may not be an easy task unless Prime Minister Imran Khan or President Arif Alvi directly speak to the US president and appeal for her release. Since she had been sentence by an American court, the president can pardon. Her case at present is perhaps beyond the use of diplomatic channels, except for at the highest level.

There is no denying the fact that if Imran Khan's government brings back Dr Aafia, it will not only help him regain the loss his government suffered due to recent protests but would also bring an end to a long-standing issue.

Mr Qureshi, who was the foreign minister during the PPP government when Raymond Davis, who had killed two Pakistanis, was released, clarified his position and rejected a claim of Dr Fouzia that the US had offered released of Dr Aafia as exchange of Davis.

Dr Aafia, through Pakistan embassy in Washington, had sent a letter to PM Imran Khan with a plea and hope that his government would use its good offices to seek her release.

In the past, the PPP and the PML-N governments also tried, but not at the highest level. Once I asked former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, during her visit to Pakistan, what was the US position on Dr Aafia, a Pakistani national, and she said, “We can't interfere in judicial process”.

She was an under-trial prisoner at that time. Now, the president can pardon her, but then it depends on how Pakistan approaches the US authorities.

The fact remains that she has almost completed her life imprisonment in the US custody since 2003, when the US claimed that she was arrested in Afghanistan for her alleged links with al-Qaeda, the claim which Dr Aafia and her family denied. She was later charged for trying to attack an American solider, she denied.

Pakistan should also place some facts on Dr Aafia Siddiqui's case and gross injustice being done to her. (1) She was not arrested in Afghanistan, but was picked up near her house in Karachi, in a joint operation, on the demand of the US to the former president, General Pervez Musharraf (retd). Unfortunately, the successive governments in Pakistan, never contested this very claim.

(2) Secondly, she was never charged for she was wanted and arrested from here. (3) An FIR about her disappearance was registered in Karachi at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Police Station, which was later sealed. (4) Pakistan can demand her release on humanitarian grounds as her health condition had deteriorated over the years.

It was sometime in 2003, when three to four cars intercepted Dr Aafia Siddiqui in a car about two kilometres from her house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Block VII, Karachi, and forcibly pushed her in a car. Then she never returned home as 15 years had passed. An FIR, which was registered about her disappearance, was sealed, as the then government never owned the case, as it had been accused of handing her over to the FBI, the fact which no successive government ever disclosed.

Her mother, in an interview with this ascribe few days after her disappearance, disclosed that she had contacted the then interior minister, Lt-General Moinuddin Haider (retd), former chairman Senate, Mohammad Mian Soomro, Chaudhry Shujaat and others and all gave her hope that she would return home and advised her not to create hue and cry.

She remained missing for almost two years before a foreign journalist broke the story about her presence in the US camp in Afghanistan. She was later shifted to the United States and in 2010, an American court sentenced her to 86 years imprisonment on terrorism charges, something she always denied and complained that she was never given a fair trial. She also disputed American claim that she was an American national.

The biggest dilemma in her case was the role of successive regimes here as the governments never contested the US claim that she was not abducted from Pakistan. Therefore, she was never tried on a charge she was initially required and picked up from Karachi.

Pakistan, in the past, had mishandled her case and the role of political and religious parties also damaged the case as the Parliament and the PML-Q government (2002 to 2007), also remained silent on the issue.

Had Pakistan taken a position even after the fall of Musharraf, that she was a Pakistani national, handed over to the FBI, by a dictatorial regime and demanded her extradition, things would have been different.

A senior police officer, who was handling the case in 2003, revealed, "We were told not to pursue the case.' The mystery of Dr Aafia Siddiqui's disappearance and the charges on which she was wanted remains a big mystery even, today.

It is also time for some of those leaders who remained coalition partner of Musharraf, to speak up now. Dr Aafia Siddiqui became a victim of circumstance and criminal silence of the successive regimes, which made her case more complicated.

There is always a light at the end of the tunnel and one has to wait and see how seriously, legally and diplomatically her case would be taken up by the incumbent Pakistani government with the US.

  The writer is a senior columnist and analyst with Geo, The News and Jang.

Twitter: @MazharAbbasGEO