An al-Qaida suspect”s 12-year-old son, who was taken into custody with his mother and held for two months, was handed over to Pakistan Monday and returned to his relatives there.
The boy”s mother, Aafia Siddiqui, was detained outside the governor”s house in Afghanistan”s Ghazni province in July on suspicion of links to al-Qaida and taken to the U.S. military base there. The American-educated Pakistani was then flown to New York to face charges of assault on U.S. personnel in Ghazni.
The U.S. indictment alleges that during Siddiqui”s interrogation in Ghazni, she picked up a soldier”s rifle, announced her “desire to kill Americans” and fired at U.S. soldiers and FBI agents. She was wounded by return fire.
Her son Ali Hassan was with his mother at the time of her arrest and has been in Afghan custody ever since.
A spokesman for Afghanistan”s Foreign Ministry, Sultan Ahmed Baheen, said the boy has spent the last 10 days in a “guest house” of Afghanistan”s intelligence service. Before that, the ministry said only that he was in the custody of the prosecutor who deals with minors. Baheen said Ali Hassan is a dual American-Pakistani citizen because he was born in the U.S.
