Pakistan to press U.S for Aafia's repatriation

Pakistan's Interior Ministry has reportedly sent an agenda to the federal cabinet to request the United States Government to consider the repatriation of Dr Aafia Siddiqui to Pakistan.

The federal cabinet meeting under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to approve the Council of Europe (COE) Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons to bring DR Siddiqui back home from a U.S. prison, the Dawn News reports.

Dr Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 after she was convicted of grabbing a U.S. soldier's assault rifle to shoot a group of FBI agents and American soldiers at an Afghan police compound in July 2008.

The U.S. officials had suggested that she was an Al Qaeda agent.

However, she denied the charge against her during the trial and her family and many in Pakistan believed that it was just a cover-up.

She has been under detention since then at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Texas, where she has been kept in the Special Housing Unit (SHU), which is the most severe confinement category.

Her release has become one of the top national issues for the country and there have been numerous protests, not only in Pakistan but many other countries, for her release.

However, Pakistan and U.S. do not have any bilateral prisoners' exchange agreement.