by VICTORIA BRITTAIN
Dr Siddiqui’s disappearance in March 2003 came amid a feverish whirl of arrests and disappearances in Pakistan, including Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, who has claimed to have been the master mind of 9/11, and many other Al Qaeda related attacks, and has been named as the killer of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Khaled Sheikh Mohammad was important enough to the Americans to be water-boarded 183 times. Shortly after Dr Siddiqui’s disappearance, Khaled Sheikh Mohammad’s nephew, Ammar Baluchi, was arrested in connection with 9/11. The two men were taken to Guantanamo Bay, then to various CIA-run secret prisons known as “black sites” for torture, before being returned to Guantanamo Bay.
US officials then had Dr Siddiqui on an Al Qaeda “wanted” list and linked her to Baluchi, claiming he was her second husband. Her family, and other sources in Pakistan have denied the marriage, but it remains probably the most repeated detail about her and the one that has given her an indelible image as a terrorist. This was not the only lurid story about her – she was also alleged in a UN report to have been a courier of blood diamonds from Liberia for Al Qaeda with a sighting reported there in June, 2001. Her lawyer, Elaine Sharp stated that Dr Siddiqui had been in Boston at that time and she could prove it. That story died away, but the further damage to her reputation was done.
For five years nothing sure was in the public domain about what happened to her and the children, though the rumours grew, turning her into a tragic martyr for many, or a poster for Al Qaeda ruthlessness for others . Several former detainees at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan claimed to have seen her there, while US officials quoted in Wilileaks denied she had been.
A senior Pakistani journalist, Najeed Ahmed, followed the story for five years and reported witness testimony of someone who claimed to have been part of the arresting team, which he said was a joint operation with the FBI. (Mr Ahmed made a public statement about his research in 2009, but died the next day, reportedly of a heart attack.)
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