A Pakistani woman who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for allegedly attempting to murder American officials and soldiers was brutally assaulted in the notorious maximum- security Federal Medical Center in Texas, America.

Her lawyer revealed recently that another inmate smashed a coffee mug filled with scalding hot liquid onto her face. The prison has a horrific reputation for mysterious deaths, unsolved attacks and suspected rapes. It is not a safe environment for any prisoner.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui, 49, was convicted by a US court in 2010 on charges of shooting at US army and FBI officers while in custody in Afghanistan. She disappeared from Karachi in March 2003 only to reappear five years later in unclear circumstances in central Afghanistan where she allegedly attacked American soldiers and FBI agents.

Her supporters claim that she is innocent of the crimes she is accused of. According to prosecutors however, she managed to grab an M-4 assault rifle and opened fire. She missed but was cut down by two bullets from a 9mm pistol fired by one of the soldiers she allegedly targeted.

Siddiqui, who was born in Karachi and graduated from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Brandeis University in biology and neuroscience while living in the US between 1991 and 2002. She denied grabbing a weapon or having any familiarity with firearms. She is a frail, petite woman who is only 5”3 in height.

She is known as the ‘Grey Lady of Bagram’ and was supposedly tortured for five years at the infamous Bagram air base in Afghanistan. Released inmates from the notorious American prison have stated that there was a woman held there, whose screams day and night prompted them to go on hunger strike for six days in protest.

It was Dr Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist who broke the story in mid-2008 about a woman held and tortured at the airbase. Dr Ridley said: “I am convinced she is the Grey Lady of Bagram. I've shown her photographs to various ex-Bagram detainees and half a dozen have confirmed she is the woman they saw locked up there.

“I have spoken to Binyam Mohammed, a former Bagram, Guantanamo and ghost detainee who told me he saw several US soldiers gang rape Aafia Siddiqui while she was in Bagram. Furthermore, following my exclusive footage of the interior of the cell, the prosecution say the bullets she allegedly discharged couldn't be found, nor could the original firearm which did not carry any of her palm or finger prints. It simply did not happen if you believe the science.”

Muslim Daily, an Instagram page with half a million followers, quoting from various news sources claimed that there were no bullet holes, no shells from the gun, her fingerprints were not on the gun, and no one was injured except her. Dr. Aafia’s supporters further questioned that she was weak and had lost weight due to years of torture, so how could she pick up a heavy gun and physically fight anyone?

Dr. Aafia stated in her speech at her sentencing: “The power you gave them to torture me, rape me, and every time they searched me naked. I’m dead,” she added: “I was dead since the very first time I was raped."

According to Dr Fowzia, her sister, Aafia was sexually assaulted and tortured until she signed confessions and was 'drugged, beaten with rifles until she bled, forced to walk on the Quran naked, and made to watch her children tortured in front of her'.

Moazzam Begg, former Guantanamo detainee and Outreach director at CAGE had said: “Aafia Siddiqui’s case remains one of the most troubling in the sordid history of the ‘War on Terror’....we need to ask if Pakistani authorities will seek her repatriation while she is still alive or only after she’s in a body bag.

“It is time this chapter of Aafia Siddiqui’s life was closed. She needs to go home and be with the children she never saw grow up.”