Wikileaks & Dr Aafia
Commenatary
By Andrew Purcell
Officials at Bagram re
sponded to an inquiry by Ann Patterson, then the American ambassador to Pakistan, with a document denying that they ever had custody of Aafia Siddiqui.
"Bagram officials have assured us that they have not been holding Siddiqui for the last four years, as has been alleged" the embassy wrote on July 31, 2008.
Does this confirm the United States' claim that Aafia was not secretly being held in the secret prison facility at Bagram?
Not in any universe where truth has meaning.
People who run secret prisons have agendas that often do not include telling the truth. What is the point of running a secret prison if you let people know who is in it? It defeats the whole purpose of the institution.
Not that Ambassador Patterson really wanted to inquire too deeply. A positive response to her question would certainly have complicated the government's already prickly relationship with Pakistan.
So this denial is not quite the obvious and absolute refutation of the allegations by journalists and human rights organizations, and the testimony of eyewitnesses, who have all identified Aafia Siddiqui as the Grey Lady, Prisoner 650, in Bagram.