11 Year-Old Son of Female Al Qaeda Suspect May Be In Custody
Young boy was detained with Siddique in Afghanistan earlier this month.
August 25, 2008— -- An 11-year-old boy detained along with a female al Qaeda suspect now in U.S. custody appears to be the woman's son, according to U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia.
Garcia, who is prosecuting the mother, made the assertion in a letter received Friday by Siddique's lawyer, Elizabeth Fink. A redacted copy of the letter was provided to ABC News.
Unlike Siddique, who is being held in a federal prison in Brooklyn, the boy is being held by the Afghan authorities, Garcia wrote in his letter. According to the letter, the results of a DNA test showed the boy's DNA "was consistent with that of a potential offspring of Aafia Siddiqui."
More tests are being done, Garcia wrote, and they should be completed this week. U.S. authorities also compared a passport photo of Siddique's son, Mohammed Ahmed, to the boy held in Afghanistan and believed they appeared to be the same person.
The boy told U.S. agents who interviewed him that "he is an orphan and that his parents were killed in an earthquake in Pakistan around October 2005," Garcia wrote. He said Siddique, the woman U.S. authorities now believe to be his mother, was named "Saliha," and that he had been traveling with her "since shortly after his parents died," wrote Garcia.
Garcia noted in his letter that the State Department had been told of the boy's status. In an interview with ABC News, Fink noted that the boy was born in Boston and is a U.S. citizen.
"The child is an American citizen, he is not a Pakistani citizen," Fink said. She said the State Department should collect the child from the Afghan authorities.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Garcia declined to comment on the letter. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment made Monday evening.
Both the boy and Siddique, a 36-year-old MIT-trained behavioral neuroscientist, were picked up by Afghan National Police earlier this month. When she was apprehended, sources told ABC News, Siddique had in her possession maps of New York, a list of potential targets that included the Statue of Liberty and Times Square, and detailed chemical, biological and radiological weapon information that has been seen only in a handful of terrorist cases. Some have dubbed her a terrorist "Mata Hari."
