Islamabad: The hearing of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui case was held at Islamabad High Court on Friday.

Justice Sardar Ijaz Ishaq Khan was visibly upset that, after wasting everyone's time over four hearings, the Pakistan government was still not willing to put in writing its stated refusal to support justice for the 'Daughter of the Nation' who has been held for 22 years in deplorable conditions, under allegations that are demonstrably false. He ordered the government (from the Prime Minister on down) into court next week to either make an honest statement, or face a finding of contempt.

Aafia's case is perhaps the worst example in the entire 'War on Terror', in that she was sold for a $55,000 bounty to the CIA in March 2003, and they abducted her and her three children from Karachi. She was tortured for five years in Bagram Air Force Base; her six-year old son Ahmed was put in prison in Kabul for 5 years; her three-year old daughter Maryam was forcibly adopted for seven years into an American family; and nobody will admit what happened to her infant Suleiman - she does not know if he is dead or alive.

Later, in 2008, she was falsely accused of attempted murder in Ghazni, Afghanistan, in a war zone where thousands of people were actually murdered and never charged. Even had she been guilty she would only have faced about 7 years in prison, but she was given 86 years and sent to the suffer in the horrific conditions of FMC Carswell, in Fort Worth, Texas.

Over several months, U.S. counsel for Aafia - Clive Stafford Smith OBE - has been asking the Pakistan government to intervene with 'amicus curiae' briefs where the government acts as a 'friend of the court' to put forward the interest of the government. This is a common intervention used routinely in the U.S.; Pakistan has, for example, previously filed one in the criminal prosecution of Tu¨rkiye Halk Bankasi A.S¸. (Halkbank), arguing that a bank should not be subject to U.S. criminal jurisdiction for corruption.

The issues on which Aafia Siddiqui needs the support of her government are as follows:

Seeking to stop her sexual abuse in FMC Carswell, while trying to get her access to a doctor and to Imam Omar Suleiman as her religious advisor. Due to the inaction of the Pakistan government the federal court in Dallas this week denied Aafia any relief.

Seeking compassionate relief for her. U.S. counsel plan to file the application this month in New York. (The Pakistan government is not required to admit that her original abduction was facilitated by the Musharraf regime, merely to ask the court to look carefully at her request for compassion.)

The Attorney General of Pakistan approved the language of the proposed brief in Aafia's case, and yet now the government is refusing to file such a brief, while refusing to say in writing why.

'It is a dark day for Pakistan,' said her U.S. counsel Clive Stafford Smith, OBE. 'I fully understand why the judge is so frustrated. The government promised to support us, then backed out without reasons. I have personally put in hundreds of hours of work for Aafia without expectation of reward; I have even written a rough draft of the brief for them; yet they do nothing. Is this really what Pakistani citizens should expect from their government? I hope the Prime Minister brings them all to their senses before they do further harm to Aafia.'

'It was shocking that the government would not even support Aafia in our litigation against the prison,' Clive Stafford Smith continued. 'Do they think it is okay for her to be raped in prison? Does the government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan think it's acceptable that she be denied access to a Muslim religious advisor? The court just denied our demands saying there was insufficient proof that the Bureau of Prisons had been told to stop abusing her - proof that should be coming from her government.'