Aafia Siddiqui

Updated Feb. 4, 2010

Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist, was convicted in February 2010 of trying to kill American military officers in 2008 while she was in custody in a police station in Afghanistan.

A jury in United States District Court in Manhattan found the American-trained scientist guilty of all seven counts against her, including attempted murder. She faces life in prison when she is sentenced in May 2010.

Ms. Siddiqui, who was described in 2004 by Robert Mueller, director of the F.B.I., as "an Al Qaeda operative and facilitator," raised suspicions when she and her three children vanished in Pakistan in 2003.

She did not turn up again until 2008 in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Her eldest child was with her; the other two are missing. She was taken into custody in Ghazni after local authorities became suspicious of her loitering outside the provincial governor's compound.

When in custody, on July 18, 2008, prosecutors said, Ms. Siddiqui grabbed an M4 rifle from a police station floor and fired on Army officers and F.B.I. agents. She was shot in the abdomen.

Her competency - first to stand trial, and then to take the stand - was a major point of contention in the case.

When Ms. Siddiqui was allowed to testify, she claimed that assertions that she had fired a weapon at officers was "the biggest lie." The weapon was never in her hands, said Ms. Siddiqui, who explained that she was merely trying to escape from the police station because she feared being tortured.

She had been arrested the day before; in her purse were instructions on making explosives and a list of New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.

Ms. Siddiqui had studied at Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.