NEW YORK, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A judge in New York sentenced a Pakistani neuroscientist -- named one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists -- to 86 years in prison for shooting at U.S. troops.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman sentenced Aafia Siddiqui, 38, a former student of Brandies University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, despite arguments by her lawyer that she was mentally unstable, The Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday.
Siddiqui was convicted in February on two counts of attempted murder for trying to shoot U.S. soldiers in an Afghanistan police station two years ago.
In 2008, Siddiqui was detained near the Afghan city of Ghazni. When U.S. soldiers tried to interrogate her, she grabbed a rifle and opened fire into a crowd. She hit no one and was shot and wounded as she attempted to flee. U.S. officials said she was found with bomb-making instructions and a list of prominent New York city sites, apparently a target list.
Protesters hit the streets across Pakistan after receiving word of her sentencing, lighting fires and chanting anti-American slogans, the BBC reported. The Jamaat-e-Islami religious party announced a national strike after weekly prayers and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif said he was "saddened" by the sentence.
Siddiqui's family in Karachi charged that the U.S. justice system was biased against Muslims.
"This is the beginning of the greatest travesty of justice," her sister, Fowzia, told the British broadcaster. "My sister is going to come back. This is not her downfall. This is her victory."
