Aafia Siddiqui: Pakistani scientist in US prison meets her sister Dr. Fowzia after 20 years

TEXAS – Dr Fowzia Siddiqui met her sister and Pakistani scientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who is currently imprisoned in Fort Worth town of the US, after a long wait of 2 decades.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, has not been in contact with any of her family members for the last decade until recent development as her sister travelled to Texas to meet her.

The meeting was held in Fort Worth town of the US where Siddiqui is currently detained, reports suggest while British attorney Clive Stafford Smith also joined Dr. Fowzia for the rare meeting.

Siddiqui was finally able to see any of her family members as she was recently granted the right to meet her family. It has been learnt that the meeting between Siddiqui sisters continued for 2.5 hours.

JI Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, in his tweet, said sisters met in a room separated by glass wall while they were not allowed to exchange any gifts. Quoting Dr. Fowzia, he said Aafia is not in a good condition and is not aware of the death of his mother, who passed away last year.

Earlier, the US administration granted a visa to Dr Fowzia Siddique to meet Aafia, a graduate of MIT, who was arrested by the US forces for her suspected links to Al Qaeda and was given an 86-year sentence in 2010 for attempted murder. She is serving this sentence at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Carswell in Texas.

Shortly after the arrest of alleged 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose nephew Siddiqui was married to, Dr Aafia and her three children disappeared in the port city of Karachi.

Five years later, she appeared in neighbouring Afghanistan, where she was arrested by local forces in the restive southeastern province of Ghazni and later handed to US forces who questioned her.

It is unclear where Dr Aafia was between her 2003 disappearance in Pakistan and her 2008 reappearance in Afghanistan, with her supporters claiming she was the victim of a secret Pakistan-US plot.

Pakistan seeks consular access to Dr Aafia Siddiqui in US amid death rumours

At her trial in New York in 2010, she said she was detained for a "long time" in a "secret prison" in Afghanistan. Her supporters said she was the "ghost prisoner" in Bagram, serial number 650, but this is denied by the US.