Release Aafia Siddiqui, Pakistan's Sharif writes to Biden

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has written to US President Joe Biden, requesting the release of a Pakistani woman who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in the US, a government lawyer told a court on Friday.

The letter from Sharif was submitted to a court in Islamabad that was hearing a petition from the sister of Aafia Siddiqui, a US-trained neuroscientist who was convicted in 2010 on charges including "attempting to kill US nationals" in Afghanistan.

Siddiqui became a suspect after she left the US and married a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But the charges against her are related to an incident in which she was wounded during an interrogation by the US military in Afghanistan in 2008. Witnesses claim she snatched a gun and shot at American soldiers.

According to a copy of Sharif's letter, dated October 13, seen by The Associated Press, the prime minister informed Biden that the woman had already served 16 years in prison.

He wrote that the matter deserved “to be viewed with compassion.” Sharif said over the years, numerous Pakistani officials paid consular visits to her and raised serious concerns about the treatment she received, which severely impacted her already fragile mental and as well as frail physical health.

“In fact, they fear that she could take her own life,” Sharif wrote about the assessment of the Pakistani officials.

He asked Biden to accept her sister's clemency petition and order her release on humanitarian grounds.

Siddiqui’s “family, and millions of my fellow citizens join me in seeking your blessings for a favorable outcome of this request,” he told Biden in the letter.

Siddiqui's family has long maintained that she disappeared from Karachi in 2003 and blamed the government of former Pakistan general Pervez Musharraf for secretly handing her over to US officials.

Musharraf was in power when Pakistan became a US ally in the so-called 'war on terror' after the September 11 attacks. His government arrested dozens of suspects and reportedly handed them over to various governments, including Washington.