Pakistan’s leader calls on Biden to secure release of a woman serving lengthy prison term

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s prime minister has written to U.S. President Joe Biden to request the release of a Pakistani woman who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in the U.S. for terrorism charges, a government lawyer told a court on Friday.

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

Siddiqui became a terrorism suspect after she left the U.S. and married a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. She was wounded during a confrontation with U.S. authorities in Afghanistan in 2008. Witnesses say she shot at the Americans.

According to a copy of Sharif’s letter, dated Oct. 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 visit to her and raised serious concern 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 dictator Pervez Musharraf for secretly handing her over to U.S. officials.

Musharraf was in power when Pakistan became an ally of the U.S. in the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks. His government arrested dozens of suspects ad handed them over to various governments, including Washington.

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Associated Press writer Asim Tanveer contributed to this story from Multan, Pakistan.