Aafia is alive.

Pakistani scientist denies anti-US feelings in court
(AFP) – Jul 6, 2009

NEW YORK (AFP) — A Pakistani neuroscientist accused of ties to Al-Qaeda and trying to kill US agents in Afghanistan appeared in a New York court on Monday, where she denied being deranged or harboring anti-US feelings.

Aafia Siddiqui was called to appear in court after her lawyers claimed she suffered from paranoid delusions and was mentally unfit to stand trial for attempted murder.

As Judge Richard Berman listened to expert testimony on Siddiqui's mental health, the 37-year-old interrupted proceedings to dispute her own lawyers' claims of her ill health.

"I am not a psychotic," Siddiqui told the court in a tempestuous session. "I am sane, despite all your effort."

She is standing trial on charges of attempted murder and the assault of US army and FBI personnel in Afghanistan.

But she denied the charges against her in court on Monday. "I didn't shoot anybody," she said. "I am not against America. I am against the war.

"I am concerned for the lives that are being lost."

Siddiqui was arrested by Afghan forces in July 2008 and was found with "numerous documents describing the creation of explosives," and "descriptions of various landmarks in the United States," the US Department of Justice says.

Officials claim that when the US army, FBI and other officials went to question her she snatched a warrant officer's M4 rifle and shot at the group. Siddiqui was shot in the stomach during the incident.

Her arrest in 2008 was the first time the Pakistani neuroscientist had been heard of since she disappeared in Karachi in March 2003 along with her three children, then aged seven, five and six months. And no-one has yet explained where she was for those five years.

Her attorneys have claimed she is innocent and says she was held for five years in secret US or Afghan custody -- an experience responsible for her current mental illness. But the US has denied such charges.

The US also claims her name came up in 2003 interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

US officials have described her as a "treasure trove" of information on Al-Qaeda. She was deported from Afghanistan to the United States in August.

The judge said he would not make a decision on Monday about her fitness to stand trial.

Copyright © 2009 AFP