A US judge on Wednesday ordered further psychiatric evaluation for Dr Aafia Siddiqi, the US-educated Pakistani neuroscientist. Judge Richard Berman told the federal court that Dr Aafia was mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of attempted murder of the US officers in Afghanistan. After judging from an initial medical report, he said: “She is not currently competent to proceed. However, the course of treatment should continue.”
Her lawyer, Elizabeth Fink told the court that Siddiqi is “hallucinating” about her family and believes she lives with two of the children, one of whom is in fact dead and the other has disappeared, while the only child living, a 12-year-old boy does not feature in his mother’s hallucinations.
Dr Aafia is charged with attempted murder, but is not accused of terrorism. Her defence says she was innocent and was secretly incarcerated for five years prior to her arrest in July.
Judge Berman said no decision would be taken on how to proceed, including the possibility that she could be medicated so that she could stand trial. He said more is needed to be revealed about the claim that Siddiqi was illegally held and tortured between 2003 and 2008. “Certainly it has a bearing on the clinical treatment and the issue of competence,” Berman said.
Prosecutor David Ruskin said there was zero evidence that she had been in the hands of US or allied forces in Pakistan or Afghanistan prior to her arrest. He said her unexplained disappearance during that period suggested that she was an al-Qaeda agent, who had gone underground. “Dr Aafia’s 12-year-old son, who was arrested with her in Afghanistan, is now back at the family home in Karachi, but is seriously disturbed,” her counsel Fink said.
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