The Lloyd Investigative Fund’s first grant goes to Petra Bartosiewicz, in support of her investigation for Harper’s magazine of the disappearance of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who, in 2003, was reportedly abducted near her home in Karachi, along with her three American-born children.  Siddiqui, a long-time resident of the Boston area, received her doctorate from Brandeis University before returning to Pakistan with her children shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Around the time she went missing, she was sought for questioning by the FBI for her alleged links to two high-level al Qaeda suspects. In Pakistan her case became emblematic of the hundreds of “disappeared” persons who, since 9/11, have been swept up by Pakistani intelligence. Siddiqui’s whereabouts remained unknown until last summer, when after five years she and her eldest son resurfaced in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Her two younger children remain missing.

Bartosiewicz is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared on NPR’s This American Life, and numerous print publications including The Nation, Mother Jones, Salon.com, Fortune, The New York Times, and Newsday. She is currently writing a book on terrorism trials in the United States, The Best Terrorists We Could Find, to be published by Nation Books in 2009.

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