KABUL (AFP) — The Afghan government Monday handed to Pakistan diplomats the young son of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist suspected of links with Al-Qaeda who was arrested with the boy two months ago.
Foreign ministry officials handed over the child, identified by the foreign ministry as 11-year-old Ali Hassan who was born in the United States, in front of media in Kabul.
He would be returned to his family, the Pakistan embassy said.
Siddiqui, 36, is on trial in the United States for allegedly attacking US agents who went to interrogate her after she was arrested in Afghanistan on July 17. She is on a 2004 US list of people suspected of links to Al-Qaeda.
The boy has been held by the Afghan government since the arrest.
"He was kept in a guest house like a guest. He was not a prisoner," said foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen.
Baheen said Siddiqui had adopted the child in 2005 after he lost his parents, a doctor and an engineer, in the 2005 earthquake in Pakistani Kashmir. The quake killed more than 73,000 people.
Siddiqui and the child, previously identified as Ahmed Siddiqui, were arrested in the central province of Ghazni by police who said they believed she was planning a suicide bombing.
The scientist is accused of trying to shoot US agents who came to interrogate her. She was shot in the abdomen by a US soldier after turning a gun on the agents, US officials say.
The arrest of Siddiqui was the first time in five years that she had been publicly seen.
Her family and lawyers allege she had been held captive since disappearing in 2003 -- possibly in a secret US or allied prison. US officials have denied the charge.
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