Aafia's family dissatisfied with legal experts

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani embassy in the US has hired incapable legal experts to follow the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, while Aafia and members of her family have conveyed their concerns to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in this regard, TheNation has learnt reliably.
The legal experts including Charles Swift, Linda Marino and Elaine Sharp remained silent in the court over roughly manhandling of Dr. Aafia on November 3, 2009, Saima and Kausar, two eyewitnesses in the court, informed TheNation on Wednesday.
According to the sources, the lawyers were only interested in getting hefty money amounting to $ 2 million being paid by the Government of Pakistan to them.
They informed despite reservations from Dr. Aafia, Pak Ambassador to US Hussain Haqqani made this odd selection. “The main task of these legal experts is to assist the US-appointed legal experts Dawn Cardi and Chad Edgar for the release of Dr. Aafia from the US prison, which is amazing,” the sources added. Several times Dr. Aafia requested to the government for their removal but she got cold shoulder in this regard, they maintained.
Dr. Fouzia, sister of Dr. Afia, when contacted confirmed that her family members were not satisfied with the government-hired legal experts’ team.
To a query, Dr. Fouzia said, “The Foreign Office and Pakistani Embassy in the US are telling lie, as neither strip search nor naked videotaping has been stopped. Aafia remained isolated from everyone,” She said, adding that Pak Embassy did not take her family into confidence over selection of legal experts. “Without consulting us these lawyers have been assigned task to contest Aafia’s case,” she regretted.
She said official lawyers were not doing their job accordingly for the release of her sister. They were not even ready to talk to Aafia’s family members in the pretext that they were only answerable to Ambassador Hussain Haqqani, she said.
Fouzia said when she and her family members tried to enquire about the “criminal silence” of the official lawyers, they simply replied, “We will not talk to you as we are hired by Ambassador Haqqani.”
“We are not supporting selection of such a strange lawyers who are burden on national exchequer. My sister has also rejected this selection of the government and refused to take any financial assistance from public money,” Fouzia said.