Pakistani prisoner beaten and sexually assaulted in Fort Worth federal prison, lawsuit says

A Fort Worth-based federal prison subjected an incarcerated Pakistani woman to “intolerable” conditions including sexual assault, medical neglect and physical attacks, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.

Aafia Siddiqui, 52, is a Pakistani citizen serving an 86-year sentence at FMC Carswell after being convicted in 2010 on charges related to the attempted murder and assault of United States officers and employees in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government has long questioned the validity of the U.S.’s case against Siddiqui and has tried to secure her release since 2008. In 2021, Pakistani officials demanded Siddiqui’s release based on previous allegations of abuse at Carswell.

The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth Thursday by attorneys Mari Kari and Clive Smith, mentions those previous accusations as well as new claims that Carswell staff sexually assaulted Siddiqui and repeatedly beat her. The suit alleges she was attacked by other incarcerated people at Carswell and has not had access to much-needed medical or mental health care, such as treatment for her PTSD, dental care, neurological problems and deterioration of her hearing and eyesight.

On top of that, the suit says Carswell has not allowed Siddiqui to meet with an Imam despite repeated requests, violating her religious rights.

The U.S. government, the Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau’s director, Carswell and various prison staff are listed as defendants in the suit.

Siddiqui’s lawyers want a third-party investigation into the sexual and physical violence claims, as well as an opportunity for Siddiqui to see medical professionals not related to the Bureau and to meet with an Imam.

“The goal is to get her out of there and shut this place down,” said Kari, one of Siddiqui’s attorneys and co-founder of the International Resistance Project. “From what I know now, Carswell is not fit for any woman, let alone a woman as deeply traumatized as Aafia. It’s just a huge stain on our justice system.”

BOP spokesperson Benjamin O’Cone declined to comment on the suit, citing pending litigation.

Matthew Nies, spokesperson with the Department of Justice, said the department had no comment on the lawsuit and did not answer questions on whether the department will investigate the allegations.

Siddiqui’s legal team is in continuous talks with Pakistani leadership about Siddiqui’s conditions, Kari said. Last week, Siddiqui’s attorneys filed a petition for clemency in coordination with the suit that maintains Siddiqui’s innocence, arguing much of the information the government cites in her case is inaccurate.

In 2021, her case was briefly thrust into the national spotlight when a man held a group of people hostage at a Colleyville synagogue and demanded Siddiqui’s release. In the past few years, an increasing number of protests in Pakistan and the U.S. have focused on her alleged treatment at the Fort Worth-based federal prison.

On Sunday, about 120 people stood on the road outside the metal fences of Carswell during one such protest. Participants chanted Siddiqui’s name and read a portion of Thursday’s lawsuit aloud.

Omar Suleiman, a prominent American Islamic scholar who attended Sunday’s protest, described Siddiqui’s case as one of the “the greatest injustices that we saw take place in the wake of the surveillance and securitization of the Muslim community in the wake of 9/11.”

“Nothing makes sense about her case,” Suleiman said. “So the people who are out here are here because they believe that an innocent woman has been framed with the worst that you can accuse a Muslim with in America, which is charges of terrorism.”

Abuse allegations

The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a visitation request. Because KERA did not have access to speak to Siddiqui directly, she answered questions through her attorney, Clive Smith. In written responses, she described Carswell as “a rape camp.”

“The sexual abuse is unbearable to me,” she said. “I’m only surviving by a miracle of my God.”

According to the suit, Siddiqui was raped multiple times by Carswell correctional officers and subjected to sexual harassment.

Siddiqui reported she was sexually assaulted by a correctional officer in 2011. When she told another staff member about the assault, the suit says, staff retaliated against her and stripped her of access to the commissary and ability to contact her lawyer by email.

Siddiqui reported another sexual assault in 2012. According to the suit, two officers beat her unconscious and raped her. When she reported the assault to a Pakistani consular officer who visited Siddiqui in prison, she says the officers attacked her with a burning, acidic liquid, which left her with visible burn marks.

Siddiqui reported other sexual assaults in 2015, 2017 and 2018, Kari said, but she did not report other alleged assaults out of fear of retaliation.

Under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, the Bureau of Prisons must promptly investigate all sexual assault allegations and inform the person who made the report of that investigation’s outcome. The facility must also take actions to protect the alleged victim from further attacks and separate them from the alleged abuser.

Siddiqui and her attorneys say the Bureau of Prisons has not followed these protocols.

In November 2023, Smith submitted a confidential complaint to the Bureau of Prisons about Siddiqui’s abuse allegations. As of Sept. 20, Kari said, neither Siddiqui nor her legal team have received confirmation that the Bureau of Prisons properly investigated the claims or put protective measures in place. At least one of the correctional officers against whom Siddiqi made a sexual assault report still works in the Administrative Segregation Unit where she’s being held.

Siddiqui is vulnerable to future attacks, her attorneys say — especially because she is held in a segregated unit and has minimal contact with other incarcerated people.

“I am in a single cell. Sometimes I don’t come out for anything, for months,” Siddiqui wrote. “That is not surprising, as there are only seven people in the Admin Seg area and I have been here forever, for longer than anyone else ever.”

Siddiqui’s isolation and high profile likely make her a target for abuse, said Julie Abbate with Just Detention International, a human and civil rights group that focuses on sexual abuse in prisons and jails. Incarcerated people held in seclusion are more likely to be assaulted, said Abbate, who spent 15 years at the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and helped draft the national PREA standards.

Retaliation for reporting abuse is also relatively common and can dissuade further reporting. That can create a culture in which staff are either afraid to report wrongdoing or believe “we can do this with impunity and nobody cares,” Abbate said.

Carswell has a documented problem with sexual abuse of incarcerated people. From 2014 to 2018, 35 women at Carswell reported they were sexually assaulted by a staff member — the most of any federal women’s prison, according to a federal report. The problem is likely even worse than records show, a Fort Worth Star-Telegram investigation found, as women at Carswell say they are not always able to report sexual assaults due to fear of retaliation.

Carswell isn’t the only prison facing allegations of mishandling sexual assault cases — federal prisoners across the country have made similar claims. In April, Bureau of Prisons’ Director Collete Peters shut down FCI Dublin, a women’s prison in California, due to rampant sexual abuse by staff on incarcerated people. These attempts to increase protections and accountability within federal prisons are “heartening,” Abbate said, even though more work remains to be done.

Regardless of Siddiqui’s guilt or innocence, Abbate said, it is the Bureau of Prison’s responsibility to care for her.

“It seems like the person who is making these complaints isn’t the most sympathetic person in custody. and it doesn’t matter; everyone in custody has the exact same rights,” Abbate said. “We’re better than that. We should not ask who they are, we should ask who we are. And if you are the BOP, you should say, ‘We are the BOP, we are professionals.’”

Remnants of the War on Terror

Many of Siddiqui’s injuries resulted from beatings at Bagram Air Base prior to her 2010 conviction, she says. At the time, Bagram was a notorious U.S.-controlled prison in Afghanistan known for holding thousands of people suspected of being Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives.

“When she visited, my sister, who is a neurologist, says from looking at me that I have some kind of palsy in my face,” Siddiqui said via email. “That would have been from my beatings too. I have had no treatment for that – it has not even been noticed, I think.”

While Siddiqui’s case may be relatively unknown in the U.S., she’s a household name in Pakistan. The country’s former prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, referred to Siddiqui as “the daughter of the nation.”

According to the U.S. government, Siddiqui is a dangerous terrorist with ties to 9/11 who tried to kill American soldiers. To many Pakistanis, she’s a martyr and an innocent victim of America’s “war on terror” campaigns in the early 2000s.

Siddiqui was detained in 2008 in Afghanistan, where authorities found “numerous documents describing the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, and other weapons involving biological material and radiological agents” in her handbag, according to the U.S. government’s charges.

Members of the FBI and armed services escorted Siddiqui to an interview room, where they said she grabbed a M-4 rifle and tried to shoot them. In 2010, she was convicted and sent to Carswell.

The clemency petition alleges that between 2003 and 2008, the U.S.kidnapped Siddiqui and her children, and tortured her at Bagram Air Force base and a “black site” in Afghanistan. The petition also claims there are major discrepancies in accounts of the 2008 shooting and evidence that she was framed.

Prior to her arrest, Siddiqui studied neuroscience at Brandeis University and MIT. Jennifer Sayed, who attended Sunday’s protest, met Siddiqui more than 20 years ago in Boston through mutual friends at the school. Sayed described Siddiqui as an intelligent, charismatic woman.

The last time Sayed saw Siddiqui was at the Dallas Children’s Museum, where the two talked about their kids.

“I feel like I owe it to her to be here for her whenever I can,” Sayed said. “And honestly, sometimes I feel like I should be here — and we should be here — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Copyright 2024 KERA

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