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US officials deny knowing whereabouts of Dr.Afia

WASHINGTON: Five years after her disappearance, an MIT-trained Pakistani neuroscientist, accused of belonging to an al-Qaeda cell based in Boston, is alive and in custody in Afghanistan, her family attorney said. “It has been confirmed by the FBI that Aafia Siddiqi is alive,” said Elaine Whitfield Sharp, a lawyer for Siddiqi’s family told Geo News, who said she spoke to an FBI official on Thursday. “She is injured but alive, and she is in Afghanistan.” For five years, the US and Pakistani authorities have denied knowing her whereabouts. But human rights groups and Siddiqi’s relatives have long suspected that she had been captured in Karachi and secretly taken into custody. If Siddiqi was arrested in Pakistan and turned over to the United States, it would highlight a crucial instance of intelligence cooperation between the two countries during a historic low point in their relations. Earlier this week, US officials accused ISI of actively cooperating with tribal, pro-Taliban militants engaged in killing US troops in Afghanistan. In the White House meeting, President Bush confronted Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani with the intercepted phone calls between ISI and the militants. On Thursday, an FBI official visited Siddiqi’s brother in Houston to deliver the news that she was alive and in custody, Sharp said, but the visit raised as many questions as it answered. The FBI officials would not say who was holding her or reveal the fate of her three young, American-born children. “If she is in US custody, they want to know where she is,” Sharp said. “Who has got her? And does she need medical care?” The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment. Sharp said she believes those reports increased pressure on the US and Pakistani authorities to divulge more information. “I do not believe that they just found Aafia,” Sharp said. “I believe that she was there all along.”

Courtesy Geo

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