ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has written a letter to america President Joe Biden looking for his intervention to make sure launch of Dr Aafia Siddiqui who spent practically 16 years in an American jail.
In his letter, written to Biden on October 13, the premier wrote about looking for the US president’s intervention within the matter that deserves to be seen with compassion, as Siddiqui stays incarcerated on the Federal Medical Middle (FMC) Carswell in Texas.
The FMC Carswell homes feminine inmates of all safety ranges, primarily with particular wants pertaining to their medical and psychological well being.
She has been serving an 86-year sentence there, with out the potential for parole, imposed by the Southern District Courtroom of New York.
“Now 52 years previous, she has spent roughly sixteen years behind bars within the US,” PM Shehbaz wrote within the letter.
Dr Aafia, a Pakistani neuroscientist, was indicted by a New York federal district courtroom in September 2008 on prices of tried homicide and assault, stemming from an incident throughout an interview with the US authorities in Ghazni, Afghanistan — prices that she denied.
After 18 months in detention, she was tried and convicted in early 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in jail. She has since been imprisoned within the US.
The premier additional talked about that quite a few Pakistani officers have paid consular visits to Siddiqui on the jail facility over time and have raised “severe considerations concerning the therapy she has acquired”.
The therapy meted out to her has severely impacted her “already fragile psychological and frail bodily well being”.
“Actually, they even concern that she may take her personal life,” the prime minister talked about within the letter.
PM Shehbaz additional praised Biden for passionately preventing for the rights of US residents, significantly these stranded or held captive overseas.
Due to this fact, the premier added, it’s his “solemn responsibility” as Pakistan’s premier to intervene when it turns into completely mandatory to make sure a citizen’s well-being, significantly when the circumstances are as dire as they’re in her case.
“Retaining these info in view, I request you, Mr President, to kindly train your constitutional authority and settle for Dr Siddiqui’s clemency petition and order her launch, strictly on humanitarian grounds,” he wrote urging the American president to pardon the neuroscientist.
The prime minister added that he trusts Biden to accord essentially the most severe consideration that the request deserves.
“Her household, and tens of millions of my fellow residents be a part of me in looking for your blessings for a good end result of this request,” the prime minister wrote, concluding the letter.
Reacting to Premier Shehbaz’s letter, Clive Stafford Smith — American human rights lawyer who represents Dr Siddiqui — informed Geo.television that the letter is “very welcome and really heartfelt from the PM”.
“I’ve been pushing for one thing like this however it is just step one,” he mentioned, including that he hopes to fulfill the Pakistani delegation in Washington by the center of November to make the rounds of the White Home and different politicians.
Concerning the timing of the letter — which stays essential as President Biden will quickly say goodbye to the White Home simply a few months after the presidential elections in November — Clive mentioned that it was one thing he had pressed for all alongside.
“The ten weeks between the election on November fifth and inauguration on January twentieth are the ten weeks when you may get one thing achieved within the US as Biden remains to be president, however he has nothing to lose,” he mentioned.
In June this 12 months, Smith informed Geo Information that his shopper was being sexually harassed repeatedly at a jail in Fort Price, Texas, including {that a} safety guard raped her two weeks in the past as punishment.
“Sexual abuse of Dr Aafia has not stopped to date. She is being persistently subjected to bodily harassment,” he had disclosed after assembly her on the jail facility this summer season.