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Updates Regarding Aafia Siddiqui's Treatment

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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 4​



This week the long awaited trial of Aafia Siddiqui began in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. Her case has been one of the most baffling in the annals of post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions. Siddiqui, as regular readers of this website know, is a 37-year-old, MIT-educated neuroscientist, who lived in the U.S. for ten years before mysteriously vanishing from Karachi, her hometown, in 2003, along with her three children, two of whom are American born. For five years her whereabouts remained unknown, while rumors swirled that she was an Al Qaeda operative, and that she had married Ammar al Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and one of the five accused 9/11 plotters expected to face trial in the U.S. In July 2008 she was picked up in Ghazni, Afghanistan on suspicion of being a suicide bomber. The following day, as a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents arrived to question her at the police station where she was being held, she allegedly managed to get hold of an M-4 automatic rifle belonging to one of the soldiers, and, according to prosecutors, she opened fire. She hit no one but was herself hit in the abdomen by return fire. What is known is that the U.S. considered Siddiqui to be someone connected to a number of high level terrorism suspects. They say she went on the run and remained underground during her missing years. But human rights groups have long held that Siddiqui is no extremist and believe she was illegally detained and interrogated by Pakistani intelligence at the behest of the U.S. She now faces charges of attempted murder. Her trial is expected to last two weeks.

January 22, 2009 (DAY 4)

Testimony continued with a single witness called by the government. Carlo Rosati, a forensic expert in firearms and ballistics, formerly at the FBI and now a contractor working with the agency, described how he analyzed various materials taken from the crime scene at the Ghazni police station where the shooting took place on July 18, 2008. Rosati, who said he did not travel to Afghanistan or speak with any witnesses connected with the case, analyzed the gold curtain that divided the room, behind which Siddiqui was located just before the shooting. He did not find gun shot residue whose presence might have suggested a gun had been fired nearby. He was, however, able to link the bullet and shell casing found in the room in the Ghazni police station to the 9mm revolver that the chief warrant officer used to shoot Siddiqui.

Much of Rosati’s testimony focused on the tests he conducted in an effort to find evidence of any bullets fired from the M-4 rifle Siddiqui allegedly grabbed from the warrant officer. He examined a bag of debris taken from a section of the wall where bullets from the rifle were thought to be lodged, and gave a detailed account of the various tests he performed. Despite these visual, microscopic and chemical tests, and despite inspecting photographs from the scene itself, Rosati was unable to say with any certainty that the section of the wall he examined had been damaged by bullets.

“You found no shell casings, no bullets, no bullet fragments, no evidence the gun was fired?” defense attorney Charles Swift asked.

“Correct,” said Rosati.

“You examined the curtain and the debris and neither yielded evidence that a gun was fired in or in the proximity of the curtain?” Swift asked.

“Correct,” said Rosati.

Immediately after that exchange, however, Rosati said he could not rule out that the gun was fired either.

“Does all of that mean to you that the weapon was not fired at the crime scene?” he was asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Roday.

“No,” said Rosati.

“The bullet could have ricocheted or been deflected?” asked Rody.

“Yes,” said Rosati.

As the trial opened this week with the government’s case, prosecutors called three eyewitnesses to the shooting in Ghazni. But despite vivid testimony from each of these individuals–a U.S. Army captain, an FBI agent, and a former U.S. Army translator–we have not yet gotten a clear account of what unfolded at the Afghan police station on July 18. The testimony has, in fact, highlighted the sharp divergence of the accounts on certain points, though prosecutors have highlighted the fact that the eyewitness accounts, though perhaps imprecise, match up sufficiently to confirm the allegations against Siddiqui.

On the forensic side of the case, however, testimony from a number of experts this week has, in fact, underscored the difficulty of proving the case with any scientific certainty. The fact that the shooting occurred in a remote city in a war zone clearly made securing the crime scene in a timely manner difficult, if not impossible. Eyewitnesses described a chaotic confrontation that concluded as the U.S. team beat a hasty retreat with Siddiqui just after the incident, leaving the crime scene unattended. The events unfolded in a foreign country whose procedures for preserving evidence like bullets and shell casings are unknown. The individuals present during the shooting were mostly Afghan and U.S. soldiers who were in a combat mentality that did not lend itself to a detailed criminal investigation after the incident.

At the close of the proceedings today Judge Richard Berman addressed the question of security measures outside the courtroom. During opening statements on Tuesday, individuals were permitted to enter the courtroom freely, though space for the general public was limited to just six seats (everyone else watched the proceedings on a video link in an overflow courtroom on a separate floor). But by Wednesday, the second day of the trial, a metal detector was posted outside the courtroom and individuals were asked for photo identification and their names and addresses were logged by court security officers. The measure came even though all individuals entering the courthouse are required to pass through a security check at the main doors, and despite the fact that attendance at the trial had dropped sharply from the prior day dropped sharply. At the close of proceedings yesterday, day three, defense attorney Charles Swift protested the identification check, suggesting that it was unconstitutional and would preclude Siddiqui from receiving a free and fair trial. “The suggestion is that the gallery may be a threat,” said Swift, calling the measure “highly prejudicial.” During today’s proceedings Swift said he would submit a written briefing on the matter to the judge. Berman said he had not specifically ordered the names and addresses of attendees to be noted, but that he had instead merely agreed to the addition of the metal detector as a standard screening measure. Berman suggested that the U.S. Marshals had interpreted this instruction to include identification checks.

Berman said that the trial is proceeding on schedule, which means defense attorneys will likely begin presenting their case at some point next week. What remains unknown is whether Siddiqui will testify in her own defense. In recent weeks she has insisted that she is boycotting the trial and does not recognize her defense attorneys, who she says she has repeatedly tried to dismiss. She was ejected from the courtroom earlier this week after speaking out. During subsequent proceedings she remained silent in the jury’s presence, until Friday, when she spoke out again to say she is being prevented from taking the stand. “They want to take away my right to testify. I’ve asked for it,” she said. “I am not an enemy. I didn’t shoot anyone. I can bring peace with Afghanistan and the Taliban in one day, God willing.” The judge told Siddiqui she has a right to testify but is not obliged to do so, and then had her escorted from the courtroom by the U.S. Marshals.

The trial continues on Monday Jan 25, with DAY 5, USA v. Siddiqui.


Petra Bartosiewicz



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subhanallah... very excellent i have not seen anything this detailed .... please keep it coming Abdullah
 
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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 5​



This week the long awaited trial of Aafia Siddiqui began in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. Her case has been one of the most baffling in the annals of post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions. Siddiqui, as regular readers of this website know, is a 37-year-old, MIT-educated neuroscientist, who lived in the U.S. for ten years before mysteriously vanishing from Karachi, her hometown, in 2003, along with her three children, two of whom are American born. For five years her whereabouts remained unknown, while rumors swirled that she was an Al Qaeda operative, and that she had married Ammar al Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and one of the five accused 9/11 plotters expected to face trial in the U.S. In July 2008 she was picked up in Ghazni, Afghanistan on suspicion of being a suicide bomber. The following day, as a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents arrived to question her at the police station where she was being held, she allegedly managed to get hold of an M-4 automatic rifle belonging to one of the soldiers, and, according to prosecutors, she opened fire. She hit no one but was herself hit in the abdomen by return fire. What is known is that the U.S. considered Siddiqui to be someone connected to a number of high level terrorism suspects. They say she went on the run and remained underground during her missing years. But human rights groups have long held that Siddiqui is no extremist and believe she was illegally detained and interrogated by Pakistani intelligence at the behest of the U.S. She now faces charges of attempted murder. Her trial is expected to last two weeks.

January 25, 2009 (DAY 5)

The chief warrant officer whose M-4 automatic rifle Siddiqui is alleged to have grabbed, was called by the prosecution today. The officer, whose name was not revealed, was gravely wounded in September by a bomb blast near his vehicle in Afghanistan, which killed three of his fellow soldiers and one Afghan. He arrived in full dress uniform, walking with the assistance of a cane, and wept as he told jurors of the blast which left his body gravely wounded below the waist and with his hearing impaired and severe burns. “I’ve had several skin grafts and lost a couple of organs. Every bone, waist down to my feet, was broken,” he said. While testifying he grimaced and appeared frequently to be in discomfort.

He said shortly after Siddiqui was arrested on July 17, 2008, he was shown the documents and various other materials she allegedly had in her possession and made the decision to contact the FBI to assist in the investigation.

During the warrant officer’s testimony, Siddiqui spoke out and said she felt sorry for him and believed he said was covering for Captain Snyder. “Don’t do that,” she said, before being escorted from the courtroom. “It will make America look bad in international court.”

Under direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher LaVigne, the warrant officer described going to the governor’s mansion in Ghazni on the morning of the shooting, July 18, 2008. “When I arrived, all I knew was that she was in captivity in a cell. I didn’t know where.” His instructions, he said, were to ascertain whether Siddiqui was a U.S. citizen or not. “I was doing most of the talking because there was a prior relationship,” he said. “The FBI agents couldn’t just go waltzing into the Afghan National Police headquarters . They wouldn’t know who they were.” The governor, the warrant officer said, gave them permission to see Siddiqui. He said he was told “she was in a jail cell, chained with all four limbs to the bars because they couldn’t control her.”

Upon entering the room where Siddiqui was being held, he told jurors he looked quickly behind the curtain where she was being held, but did not see her. “I kind of peeked behind it and didn’t see nothing, so I sat down,” he said. “It was just a junky messy room. It was very dark.”

When asked why he put his rifle down, he said that he felt safe in the police station. “You’re in a friendly place. You don’t talk to people with an assault rifle around your neck,” he said. “It’s a show of trust. It’s a show of respect. It’s a part of the culture.”

In the moments leading up to the shooting, the officer said that he set his gun down and began to talk to the Ministry of Interior officials present to explain the U.S. team’s request to question Siddiqui. “At that point, I hear a loud scream of Allahu Akhbar. I hear my interpreter scream, ‘Chief!’ and at the same time I see Captain Snyder’s eyes get wide. I look and there’s this woman who has grabbed my rifle and is squaring off.” The officer said he immediately reached for his 9 mm revolver as the interpreter, Ahmad Gul (who testified on Day 2) dove towards Siddiqui. “I fired two shots as she fired at the room.” When asked why he shot Siddiqui, the officer said, because “she displayed hostile intent. I needed to stop this intent.”

He said Siddiqui’s stance was aggressive and not like his own after years of military training. “She knew what she was doing,” he said.

The officer said everything happened very fast. After Siddiqui was shot, “the rifle fell, she fell back, and at this point I closed the distance.” As the officer and another member of the U.S. team in the room, FBI Special Agent Eric Negron, attempted to subdue Siddiqui, he said she began shouting, “Death to America,” and “I will kill all you ######.” The officer said even after Siddiqui was shot she continued to struggle, so “she was hit a couple times to convince her” to stop struggling. “She continued to scream and be feisty even with the handcuffs on,” he said.

On cross examination by defense attorney Charles Swift, the warrant officer was asked about several sworn statements he gave in the days following the shooting in which he said that he saw Siddiqui “lunge for her weapon,” which was in contrast to his earlier testimony during the day when he said Siddiqui was already holding the rifle and pointing it in his direction when he first saw her. “I must have wrote it incorrectly,” he said. “She had the weapon system.” When asked why he noted that she “lunged” in two separate statements, the officer said, “It all all happened fast.”

“When you first saw her, she had it or not?” Swift asked.

“Let’s see here, it’s all one fluid motion,” said the officer. “She was diving for it, she had her hands on it.”

“She certainly didn’t have time to fumble with the gun,” Swift said.

“As I look back it was certainly amazing she got it up that fast,” the officer said.

Earlier testimony today came from another witness to the shooting, female army medic Dawn Card, who told jurors she remembers seeing Siddiqui pointing a gun in her direction before fleeing the room. But on cross examination Card was asked about a statement she later made to the FBI in which she suggested it was Captain Robert Snyder, not the warrant officer, who left the M-4 automatic rifle unattended. Snyder testified last week and said he was in the room but that it was the warrant officer who had left his weapon unattended (see Day 1 testimony). According to her statement to the FBI, Card said Snyder would get “fried” if it was discovered the rifle that Siddiqui seized was his. On the stand, Card said she did not recall making the statement.

During the morning session two jurors were dismissed after reporting to Judge Richard Berman that a man in the spectator gallery had motioned to them in an intimidating fashion. The man was questioned and later released.

After jurors were dismissed for the day, defense attorney Linda Moreno once again asked for a mistrial, saying that the U.S. Marshals had removed Siddiqui roughly from the courtroom in front of the jury in a manner that “denigrates the presumption of innocence.” The judge declined Moreno’s request and said that perhaps the defense should focus more on “reigning in” their client. “Dr. Siddiqui doesn’t talk to us,” Moreno said in reference to herself and the other members of the defense team. “I tried to talk to her today,” said Moreno. “She indicated if I didn’t leave immediately she was going to accuse me of harassment.”

The judge also rejected a defense motion regarding the added security measures outside the courtroom. After the first day of proceedings last week, U.S. Marshals installed a metal detector and began to require all individuals entering the courtroom to show photo identification. Their names and addresses were then logged by court security officials. The judge today said the measures were “totally appropriate,” citing prior cases like the Martha Stewart trial which had instituted similar security measures.



Testimony continues Tuesday, Jan 26, with Day 6, USA v Siddiqui.


Petra Bartosiewicz




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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 6​



Last week the long awaited trial of Aafia Siddiqui began in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. Her case has been one of the most baffling in the annals of post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions. Siddiqui, as regular readers of this website know, is a 37-year-old, MIT-educated neuroscientist, who lived in the U.S. for ten years before mysteriously vanishing from Karachi, her hometown, in 2003, along with her three children, two of whom are American born. For five years her whereabouts remained unknown, while rumors swirled that she was an Al Qaeda operative, and that she had married Ammar al Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and one of the five accused 9/11 plotters expected to face trial in the U.S. In July 2008 she was picked up in Ghazni, Afghanistan on suspicion of being a suicide bomber. The following day, as a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents arrived to question her at the police station where she was being held, she allegedly managed to get hold of an M-4 automatic rifle belonging to one of the soldiers, and, according to prosecutors, she opened fire. She hit no one but was herself hit in the abdomen by return fire. What is known is that the U.S. considered Siddiqui to be someone connected to a number of high level terrorism suspects. They say she went on the run and remained underground during her missing years. But human rights groups have long held that Siddiqui is no extremist and believe she was illegally detained and interrogated by Pakistani intelligence at the behest of the U.S. She now faces charges of attempted murder. Her case is expected to go the jury for deliberation by the end of this week.

January 26, 2009 (DAY 6)

Defense attorneys for Siddiqui asked the judge today that she be prohibited from taking the stand in her own defense, citing her mental instability. In recent weeks Siddiqui has said alternately that she is boycotting the trial and that she is being prevented from being allowed to testify. During court proceedings today Siddiqui once again signaled to the spectator gallery that she does not recognize her legal team, two of whom are court appointed attorneys and three of whom have been retained on her behalf by the government of Pakistan. Waving her hands towards the attorneys and shaking her head, she then essentially ejected herself from the proceedings, saying, “That’s it, I’m going to boycott. I’m not going to come again. Bye everybody.” She was escorted out by U.S. Marshals.

Since the beginning of the trial last week Siddiqui has made several outburst in the courtroom, saying, among other things, that she “can bring peace with Afghanistan and the Taliban in one day, God willing.” The defense team’s request came in open court but not in the presence of the jurors. In a letter submitted earlier today to Judge Berman, the attorneys argued that Siddiqui “suffers from diminished capacity,” and that if she is permitted to “continue her irrational and bewildering insistence that she has the power to influence the Taliban, she will invite jurors to infer that she has terrorist associations.”

Jurors heard testimony from FBI Special Agent Eric Negron, who flew to Ghazni on July 18, 2008, along with Special Agent John Jefferson and Staff Sergeant Lamont Williams. Negron recounted how he and Jefferson were initially told by the Afghans that they would not be permitted to interview Siddiqui, and that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was personally enroute to Ghazni “to attend to the matter.” Negron said he called his supervising agent who told Negron to try to interview Siddiqui anyway, and to fingerprint her and obtain hair and DNA samples. It was during their second attempt to interview Siddiqui that the team went to the Afghan National Police headquarters in Ghazni where they encountered her. Negron testified that within seconds after the U.S. team entered the room where Siddiqui was being held, he saw the warrant officer’s rifle raised near the edge of the curtain that divided the room. He testified he did not see Siddiqui’s face from behind the curtain, but only the rifle, held “by two hands sticking from behind the curtain into the room. One hand was on the barrel and the other hand on the trigger.” Negron said that after Siddiqui was shot by the warrant officer he helped restrain her, but she fought back. “I had to strike her several times with a closed fist across the face,” he said. After she was subdued Siddiqui “either fainted or faked that she had fainted,” and was handcuffed.

Once outside the Afghan National Police headquarters, Negron said the Americans encountered what he estimated were 50-70 armed Afghans in aggressive postures. He noticed one Afghan walking nearby with a handgun and told his interpreter to tell the man “to holster his weapon or I will kill him.” The man turned and laughed, recalled Negron, but obeyed the order.

Under cross examination by defense attorney Linda Moreno, Negron was asked why he didn’t do a crime scene investigation in the room where the shooting occurred. Negron said he didn’t see the room as a crime scene and that the warrant officer “fired back in the defense of all in the room. At the time I saw it as a firefight with an enemy combatant.”

Negron also spoke of how he felt the Americans might have been “set up” by the Afghans because they had been caught by surprise when Siddiqui emerged from behind the curtain. “We were told that the woman was in Afghan National Police custody, not free to roam around as she did into that room.” Moreno questioned why Negron did not share this belief with the FBI agents who later interviewed him about the incident. Negron did not have an answer.

Jurors also heard from Sergeant Kenneth Cook, who was part of the U.S. team at the Afghan National Police Station. Cook recalled that when they arrived at the compound they encountered some 150-200 armed Afghans. “The were all pretty excited,” said Cook. “They were huddled in little groups, talking amongst themselves and pointing at us.” Cook, who was stationed outside the police station while the rest of the team went in to locate Siddiqui, said he told one of the other members of the team that “something bad is going to happen.” Just after that he heard shots from the second floor.

Two final eyewitnesses to the shooting also testified. Ahmad Jawidami, a 25-year-old Afghan interpreter known by colleagues as “Dave,” said he ran from the room as soon as he heard the first shot fired. Staff Sergeant Lamont Williams testified that he was posted outside the door to the room where the shooting took place. On cross examination by defense attorney Charles Swift, Williams said that just after he heard shots fired a number of individuals in the room came running out. But Williams said he did not recall that the U.S. Army medic, Dawn Card, was among them. Williams’ testimony was in sharp contrast to Card’s own testimony in court yesterday, when she said she was present in the room but ran out as soon as the shooting started. Williams, who stood at the only exit to the room, said he did not remember seeing Card enter the room before the incident or exit after.

“You’re sure of that?” asked Swift.

“Yeah,” said Williams.

On further questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher LaVigne, Williams was firm in his recollection. “No, she wasn’t in the room,” he said. “I was right outside the door.”

The government is expected to call its final witnesses tomorrow morning, after which the defense will present its case. Attorneys for Siddiqui told Judge Richard Berman today they anticipate calling two witnesses and will possibly show a videotaped deposition taken in Afghanistan.

Testimony continues Wednesday, Jan 27, with Day 7, USA v Siddiqui.


Petra Bartosiewicz




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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 7​



Last week the long awaited trial of Aafia Siddiqui began in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. Her case has been one of the most baffling in the annals of post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions. Siddiqui, as regular readers of this website know, is a 37-year-old, MIT-educated neuroscientist, who lived in the U.S. for ten years before mysteriously vanishing from Karachi, her hometown, in 2003, along with her three children, two of whom are American born. For five years her whereabouts remained unknown, while rumors swirled that she was an Al Qaeda operative, and that she had married Ammar al Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and one of the five accused 9/11 plotters expected to face trial in the U.S. In July 2008 she was picked up in Ghazni, Afghanistan on suspicion of being a suicide bomber. The following day, as a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents arrived to question her at the police station where she was being held, she allegedly managed to get hold of an M-4 automatic rifle belonging to one of the soldiers, and, according to prosecutors, she opened fire. She hit no one but was herself hit in the abdomen by return fire. What is known is that the U.S. considered Siddiqui to be someone connected to a number of high level terrorism suspects. They say she went on the run and remained underground during her missing years. But human rights groups have long held that Siddiqui is no extremist and believe she was illegally detained and interrogated by Pakistani intelligence at the behest of the U.S. She now faces charges of attempted murder. Her case is expected to go the jury for deliberation by the end of this week.

January 27, 2009 (DAY 7)

The Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, arrived at the courthouse this morning to monitor the progress of the trial. “You are very welcome in this courtroom, your Excellency,” said Judge Richard Berman, who had a brief private meeting with the ambassador before jurors were brought into the courtroom. Siddiqui’s defense attorneys have received a reported $2 million from the government of Pakistan for the case, and greeted the ambassador as the day’s proceedings began. Haqqani sat in a special chair brought into the spectator gallery and observed about an hour and a half of the testimony before leaving. Siddiqui, who yesterday was ejected from the courtroom after once again announcing her boycott of the trial, did not attend the proceedings today.

The prosecution rested their case this morning with no additional witnesses, and defense attorneys began to present their case. Key testimony came from expert witness William Tobin, a forensic metallurgical consultant who worked at the FBI for 24 years and investigated high profile cases such as the JFK assassination and the crash of TWA flight 800. Tobin, who said he has testified in some 225 trials, almost every one of those for the prosecution, examined photos and videotape of the room in Ghazni where the shooting occurred, with a particular focus on what the government has alleged are two bullet holes from rounds shot by the M-4 automatic rifle that Siddiqui is accused of seizing from a U.S. Army warrant officer. Tobin told jurors that he could say with “scientific certainty” that the two holes in the wall were not made by SS109 rounds used in an M-4 automatic rifle, adding that he did not believe the holes were the result of any bullets at all. Tobin described one of the tests he performed, which involved firing an SS109 round into a surface similar to the wall in the Ghazni police station. The test surface was left with cracks and significant damage around the bullet hole, which he described as “spalling damage” that was the resulted of energy transfered from the bullet to the surface of impact. The photos and video of the wall in the Ghazni police station, he said, demonstrated no such “spalling damage.” Tobin also described how the angle from which the gun was shot would have had a significant impact on the amount of damage to the wall, with the least amount of damage resulting from a bullet that would hit the wall at a perpendicular angle. But such a scenario is unlikely given that the marks are located near the ceiling level in the room. Tobin also said that he did not see the kind of shrapnel damage he would have expected on the ceiling itself.

Tobin said SS109 rounds are designed to shatter but that the part of the projectile known as the “penetrator” should remain intact. No bullets or bullet fragments were found inside the wall by the FBI investigators who were on the scene in Ghazni. Asked whether the penetrator could have bounced back into the room, as prosecutors suggested in earlier testimony, Tobin said that was unlikely. “If the laws of physics in Afghanistan are the same as here, it would just fall to the base of the wall,” he said. Tobin also described the difference one could expect from the impact of an SS109 round versus a 9mm round from a handgun like the one that the chief warrant officer used to shoot Siddiqui. “It’s apples and oranges,” said Tobin. “The 9mm is a slow and stodgy round, while the SS109 is going at almost three times the velocity.” The impact from a 9mm bullet would cause far less damage than the impact from an SS109 round, said Tobin, yet the room at the Ghazni police station showed significant damage to the wall at the spot where the 9mm bullet was confirmed to have hit but none where the SS109 round supposedly hit. “You’d expect to see substantially more damage than shown in the photo,” said Tobin of the marks where the government has alleged the rounds from the M-4 rifle hit.

“You have no scientific doubt that these were not from an M-4?” asked defense attorney Charles Swift.

“That’s correct,” said Tobin.

On cross examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Rody, Tobin said he didn’t find it credible that two rounds from an M-4 could be fired in an enclosed space and not leave any forensic evidence. When asked about the eyewitness accounts, Tobin said he did not rely on witness information, citing the TWA flight 800 investigation he participated in, where the testimony of over 200 witnesses “totally contradicted the laws of physics.” Witnesses reported seeing a fireball that appeared to be moving towards the plane just before the explosion, which was interpreted by many as a missile. The cause of the explosion was eventually proven to be the result of a short circuit that set off one of the plane’s fuel tanks. “I don’t rely on witness testimony,” said Tobin. “I just don’t.”

The question of whether or not Siddiqui will take the stand in her own defense will likely be resolved tomorrow, when Judge Richard Berman is expected to rule on a request from defense attorneys that she be barred from testifying. In a seven page letter sent to the judge yesterday, her attorneys cited her mental instability and frequent outbursts during the trial, and said they have an ethical obligation to “safeguard her interests.” The attorneys requested that the judge confer with Siddiqui himself before making a final determination, but said if she is permitted to testify that statements she made while recovering from the gunshot wounds she incurred in Ghazni should not be admissible. At the time Siddiqui was in Bagram Hospital and “under the influence of various medications, in duress from being separated from her child and family and physically restrained in a hospital bed by four-point restraints,” they wrote. The attorneys said they believe that if Siddiqui does take the stand she is unlikely to remain focused on the criminal case at hand. “To the extent that Dr. Siddiqui has conferred with defense counsel about what issues she intends to address should she testify,” her attorneys wrote, “her ability to bring world peace, especially between the United States and the Taliban, appears to be the primary, if not sole, topic.”

Prosecutors asked the judge uphold Siddiqui’s Fifth Amendment right to testify and argued that any statements she made while at Bagram should be admissible. “Defense counsel recognize, as they must, that the decision to testify is a ‘personal right’ that is waivable only by the defendant,” prosecutors wrote. “Nonetheless, they claim that the Court should take what they acknowledge to be the ‘unprecedented’ step of preventing the defendant from testifying on her own behalf.” Prosecutors also argued that the issue of Siddiqui’s diminished mental capacity should not come into play since the court deemed Siddiqui competent to stand trial after a lengthy court-ordered psychiatric evaluation last year. They agreed with the defense, however, that the judge should speak with Siddiqui before he makes a final decision. That meeting may take place tomorrow morning before jurors return to hear the case.


The trial continues Thursday, Jan 28, with Day 8, USA v Siddiqui.



Petra Bartosiewicz




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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 8​


Last week the long awaited trial of Aafia Siddiqui began in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. Her case has been one of the most baffling in the annals of post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions. Siddiqui, as regular readers of this website know, is a 37-year-old, MIT-educated neuroscientist, who lived in the U.S. for ten years before mysteriously vanishing from Karachi, her hometown, in 2003, along with her three children, two of whom are American born. For five years her whereabouts remained unknown, while rumors swirled that she was an Al Qaeda operative, and that she had married Ammar al Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and one of the five accused 9/11 plotters expected to face trial in the U.S. In July 2008 she was picked up in Ghazni, Afghanistan on suspicion of being a suicide bomber. The following day, as a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents arrived to question her at the police station where she was being held, she allegedly managed to get hold of an M-4 automatic rifle belonging to one of the soldiers, and, according to prosecutors, she opened fire. She hit no one but was herself hit in the abdomen by return fire. What is known is that the U.S. considered Siddiqui to be someone connected to a number of high level terrorism suspects. They say she went on the run and remained underground during her missing years. But human rights groups have long held that Siddiqui is no extremist and believe she was illegally detained and interrogated by Pakistani intelligence at the behest of the U.S. She now faces charges of attempted murder. Her case is expected to go the jury for deliberation next week.

January 28, 2009 (DAY 8)

After days of vowing to boycott her own trial, Siddiqui voluntarily took the stand today and testified in her own defense. Her testimony came over the strenuous objections of her attorneys, who filed an application with Judge Richard Berman asking that he block her from taking the witness stand due to what they say is her mental instability and “diminished capacity.” One of the primary concerns was that Siddiqui’s rambling answers would give the government an opportunity to introduce incriminating statements she allegedly made to FBI agents while recuperating from gunshot wounds incurred in Ghazni. Prosecutors, meanwhile, urged the judge to permit Siddiqui to exercise her Fifth Amendment right to testify. On the witness stand Siddiqui was lucid and, for the most part, kept to the case at hand, though the judge frequently cut her answers short when she strayed. She appeared eager to tell her story and was at times in good humor, and even giggled at some of the questions she was asked.

Although Siddiqui’s testimony was the central focus of the day, defense attorneys also played a brief video snippet from a press conference that took place at the Afghan National Police station, in the same room where the shooting Siddiqui is charged with occurred. The video pans across the room and shows a section of the wall where two marks are clearly visible. One of the centerpieces of the prosecution’s case has been that these marks are bullet holes from the M-4 rifle that Siddiqui allegedly fired. But the video, which shows the marks on the wall, was taken on the morning of July 18, 2008, several hours before the shooting. (The marks in the video were reportedly brought to the attention of the defense on Thursday morning by prosecutor David Rody, who had himself only noticed them the night before.) The clip was played today without comment and it’s unclear if jurors understood why they were watching it, but defense attorneys are expected to assert in their closing arguments that it proves the holes could not have been the result of bullets shot by Siddiqui.

Siddiqui testified twice during the day, though only once before the jury. Prior to her direct testimony, she spoke at a preliminary hearing intended to decide whether or not she would be permitted to take the stand during trial. Also at issue during the hearing was whether prosecutors could use statements she made to FBI agents while she was in custody at Bagram Air Base following her arrest in Ghazni. Her defense attorneys argued any such statements would have been while she was in a drug-induced post-operative haze and before she was formally arrested and read her rights. At the hearing the government called two FBI agents, Angela Serser and Bruce Kamerman, who testified they interviewed Siddiqui over a two-week period while she was at Bagram, and who both said Siddiqui spoke willingly, and even solicited conversations with them when they were in her hospital room. Kamerman said Siddiqui “was coherent, she was lucid and she was able to engage in conversation.” Serser, who spent the most time with Siddiqui, described how she sat at her bedside for as many as twelve hours a day. “We discussed Ms. Siddiqui’s background, her religious beliefs and some of the circumstances for the case being opened in the U.S.,” said Serser. The purpose of the interviews, said Serser, was to gather intelligence, not to discuss the shooting incident in Ghazni, which had already been assigned to a separate team of agents. But according to Serser, they did talk about the documents that Siddiqui was allegedly found with in Ghazni. Prosecutors have introduced those documents to show Siddiqui’s motives in the shooting incident (the documents include references to specific “cells,” and a “mass casualty attack,” and name landmarks like the Empire State Building). “She indicated she enjoyed our discussions,” said Serser.

Defense attorney Charles Swift questioned how voluntary Siddiqui’s statements were given that she was held in four-point restraints and dependent on the agent. “If she wanted food she had to ask you,” said Swift.

“Correct,” said Serser.

“If she wanted water she had to ask you,” said Swift.

“Correct,” said Serser.

“If she wanted to go to the bathroom she had to ask you,” said Swift.

“Correct,” said Serser.

During a break in the proceedings, Siddiqui was heard telling one of her attorneys, “It was just a conversation. I didn’t know. She seemed like a nice person.” Siddiqui later took the stand and said that during her time at the hospital in Bagram she was on a cocktail of medications that included Percoset and morphine. She said she felt dizzy all the time. She described feeling helpless in the restraints and said she was unable to bring her hand to her mouth to feed herself. She said that with one exception none of the FBI agents or hospital staff identified themselves and they covered their name tags when they were in her hospital room. She said that she had been well cared for by the medical staff and had nothing negative to say about Serser, but that she had asked that Kamerman not be permitted in her room because he stared at her while her wounds were being dressed and when she went to the bathroom, which she found “very immodest.” She said she felt intimidated and was told “if you don’t talk to us it’s a transfer to the bad guys. I had been with a group of bad guys and I didn’t want to go back.” She was asked about the statements she made to the agents. “I thought it was an exercise to retain false information in my head,” she said. “I thought it was a continuation of my history in a secret prison.” During questioning at the preliminary hearing, Siddiqui was asked about her three children, Ahmad, Mariam and Suleiman. Ahmad was found with Siddiqui in Ghazni, but Mariam and Suleiman remain missing. Kamerman testified that she had told him alternately that the children were dead and that they were with her sister. Siddiqui said she told Kamerman no such thing and that she had no idea where the children are.

Judge Richard Berman ruled that Siddiqui could testify. “I have erred on the side of her full participation,” said Berman, who has throughout the trial required Siddiqui be present in the courthouse even if she chooses not to be in the courtroom during proceedings. He also ruled that her statements to the FBI in Bagram were “voluntary and knowing,” and could thus be used to impeach her testimony before the jury. As testimony resumed with the jury present, Siddiqui took the stand, wearing the same tan outfit and canvas sneakers she has worn throughout the trial. She wore a cream colored hijab on her head that covered all but her eyes. On direct examination by defense attorney Elaine Sharpe, she talked about her childhood and her education at MIT and Brandeis Universities. She said she was born in Karachi but spent much of her childhood in Zambia, where her father worked as a physician. She said she came from a family of doctors and that she’d been academically inclined towards the social sciences but that she’d studied science due to family pressure. She received a doctorate in neuroscience and said her doctoral thesis dealt with how children learn.

When the questions turned to the events in Ghazni, Siddiqui was initially reluctant to continue, saying that speaking about the accusations against her would violate her vow to boycott the trial. “That will mean I’m participating in something I don’t morally agree with,” she said. She eventually did recount the events of that day, telling jurors that when the U.S. team arrived to interview her she was in the room on the second floor of the Afghan National Police headquarters. The room, which has been sketched countless times for jurors over the past week, was divided by a gold curtain. On one side of the curtain was Siddiqui, who had initially been bound by the Afghans after an escape attempt, but who was untied by the time the U.S team arrived. On the other side of the curtain was a group of Afghans soldiers, police and Ministry of Interior officials who had arrived that morning from Kabul. Siddiqui said she heard American voices talking but did not see who was in the room. “I understood they wanted to take me away,” she said. “I didn’t want to go back to the secret prison. I wanted to get out.” She said she went to peek through the curtain to see if she could slip past the people in the room and make an escape. “The next thing I knew somebody saw me and said something and shot me and then another shot me and then I just passed out,” she said. When she regained consciousness she heard one of the members of the U.S. team say, “We’re taking this ###### with us.”

Asked by Sharpe whether she had picked up the M-4, Siddiqui said, “This is the biggest joke. I’ve been forced to smile under my scarf sometimes. Of course not.”

On cross examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Dabbs asked Siddiqui about a number of the documents she was allegedly found with in Ghazni at the time of her arrest. “I didn’t check my bags. I didn’t prepare them,” said Siddiqui. She said that some of the materials had been “copied from a magazine in the secret prison. I didn’t write this stuff.” The prosecution posted a number of the documents on an overhead projector in the courtroom earlier in the trial, but the writing was not legible from the spectator gallery. The judge has sealed the documents with a protective order that prevents them from being made public, saying that certain parts should not be disseminated because they contain chemical formulas. So far only fragments of the text have been revealed in various court documents filed by prosecutors. During cross examination Siddiqui asked that one of the documents which depicted sketches of guns be taken off the overhead projector, saying that she had not authored it. “You can’t build a case on hate, you should build it on fact,” she told Dabbs.

At one point during the cross examination, Dabbs asked Siddiqui whether she told FBI agents in Bagram that she had been in hiding. Defense attorneys immediately called for a mistrial, saying that information about where Siddiqui was during her five missing years is classified. The judge denied the request. Dabbs asked whether Siddiqui knew she’d been wanted for questioning by the FBI and brought up a 2002 interview that the FBI conducted with Siddiqui and her then husband Amjad Khan. She asked why Siddiqui left the U.S. for Pakistan shortly after the meeting with the agents. Siddiqui said the trip to Pakistan was pre-planned and insisted that her ex-husband, not she, was the focus of the interview. Later Sharp asked whether Siddiqui was prevented from leaving the country. “No, I wasn’t in trouble,” said Siddiqui.

“No one ever tried to stop you from leaving?” asked Sharpe.

“No,” said Siddiqui.


The trial continues Friday, Jan 29, with Day 9, USA v Siddiqui.


Petra Bartosiewicz




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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 9​



January 29, 2009 (DAY 9)

A day after Siddiqui took the stand in her own defense, her attorneys rested their case. Closing arguments are now set for Monday morning, with jurors expected to begin their deliberations later in the day. In dramatic testimony on Thursday, Siddiqui testified over the objections of her defense team, who argued she is mentally unstable, and described in vivid terms her account of the events at the Afghan National Police headquarters in Ghazni. Siddiqui told jurors she never touched the M-4 automatic rifle she is accused of firing at a group of U.S. soldiers, FBI agents and Afghan police officers and officials. She said that as she peered from behind a curtain where she was being held, she surprised the U.S. team and was shot. "I just wanted to get out of the room," she said. "I never attempted murder. That's a heavy word. No way."

On Friday prosecutors called three rebuttal witnesses to counter statements Siddiqui made during her testimony. Gary Woodworth, a longtime member of the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club in Massachusetts, said he instructed Siddiqui in a basic 12-hour pistol shooting course in the early 1990's. On the stand prosecutors had asked Siddiqui if she received instruction at the club while living in Boston. "I have no recollection of that," she said. "Actually, you can take that as a no." But Woodworth told jurors he recognized Siddiqui from a photo and recalled he gave her instruction in the use of a 9 mm pistol, among other guns, but not an M-4 rifle. The other two witnesses to testify in the government's rebuttal were the same FBI agents who took the stand on Thursday during a hearing that took place without the jury present. At the hearing, which was meant to determine whether to permit Siddiqui to testify, Special Agents Bruce Kamerman and Angela Sercer both told Judge Richard Berman that they questioned Siddiqui while she was recuperating from her gunshot wounds in Bagram Air Base. While on the stand later that day Siddiqui told jurors that Kamerman had mistreated her, watching her as her wounds were dressed and when she went to the bathroom. She denied making any statements to him. But on the stand Friday, Kamerman told jurors Siddiqui had, in fact, initiated a number of conversations with him. He said she told him she hadn't shot anyone in Ghazni. He said she told him she'd never seen, handled or fired a rifle and she picked up the M-4 rifle because it was leaning up against a wall and she wanted to look at it. "She was holding the rifle when she was shot," Kamerman said. He said Siddiqui later volunteered a different version of events, telling him she picked up the rifle because "she wanted to scare the men so she could escape." But Kamerman did not say that Siddiqui ever confessed to firing the rifle. On cross examination, defense attorney Elaine Sharp asked Kamerman whether he knew that Siddiqui was on medications such as Percocet and morphine and suggested that her statements were affected by the drugs in her system. The third witness in the rebuttal case, FBI Special Agent Angela Sercer, repeated much of the testimony she gave at the preliminary hearing, saying that she was assigned to gather intelligence from Siddiqui in Bagram during her recuperation. Sercer said she developed a good rapport with Siddiqui as she sat by her bedside, sometimes for 12-hour shifts over a period of approximately two weeks. "She was initially weaker but she became stronger as she began to heal," said Sercer, who described Siddiqui as "very intelligent." She said Siddiqui was particularly open to teaching her about Islam.

Jurors also heard the completion of testimony begun earlier this week in the form of two videotaped depositions taken in Ghazni, Afghanistan from eyewitnesses to the shooting incident. The first was the former deputy chief of counterterrorism in Ghazni, Abdul Qadeer, who testified through a translator that he questioned Siddiqui when she was brought to the police headquarters after being arrested near one of the city's mosques on July 17, 2008. The second witness was Qadeer's deputy, who spoke Urdu and said he was called in to assist in the questioning of Siddiqui and her son. Qadeer said Siddiqui had a young boy with her, who would later be identified as her eldest son, Ahmad. He described how he and a number of other police on staff beat Siddiqui because they believed she was a suicide bomber. "The whole scene was like a drama," he said. "The governor came and hit her and the chief of police came and hit her, and the governor's body guard would come and give her a punch." He said Siddiqui did not want to be handed over to the coalition forces and twice tried to escape. The second time she threatened Qadeer with a can she said contained "exploding materials," but he said he knew the can was empty and disregarded the threat. She was bound but later untied and Qadeer was present in the room where Siddiqui was being held behind a curtain when the U.S. team arrived. He said he saw a soldier go behind the curtain and immediately after that he heard shots. He said there was a stampede of people trying to get out of the room and in the chaos he fell from his chair and was trampled.


Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday, Feb 1, with Day 10, USA v Siddiqui.



Petra Bartosiewicz




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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 10​


February 1, 2009 (DAY 10)

After nine days of testimony from eyewitnesses, experts and Siddiqui herself, jurors heard closing arguments Monday from both prosecutors and defense teams. Prosecutors cast Siddiqui as a liar and said the case came down to whom jurors believed. To acquit Siddiqui, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher LaVigne, "you need to believe those nine witnesses came into court and lied to your face." But Siddiqui's defense team questioned discrepancies in the testimony of the government's eyewitnesses and highlighted the absence of any physical evidence that tied her to the M-4 automatic rifle she is alleged to have shot at a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents. During the government's closing statements, LaVigne told jurors that Siddiqui "lied to your faces. She lied and lied and lied." He pointed to Siddiqui's statement during her testimony last week that she'd never taken a gun training course. That testimony was contradicted by an instructor at a gun club in Massachusetts who said he gave Siddiqui a 12-hour pistol training course in the early 1990's. "She doesn't want you to know that she knows how to operate firearms," LaVigne told jurors.

LaVigne suggested possible reasons for the absence of physical evidence at the scene of the shooting. It took FBI agents six days to get to Ghazni to perform a crime scene investigation. By the time they arrived the room was ****** and people were sleeping on the floor. "Folks, this happened in a war zone," he said. The absence of Siddiqui's fingerprints on the rifle, said LaVigne, was possibly because the chief warrant officer who shot Siddiqui, and whose gun she is charged with grabbing and firing, used his weapon for five days before turning it over to FBI agents. The absence of shell casings was possibly because "they got lost." The absence of fragments of bullets from the M-4 rifle was because they were either picked up by the Afghans or because they may have disintegrated in the air. The absence of bullet holes in the walls from the M-4 rifle could be because the bullet holes were either not found by the FBI agents who inspected the room, or because the bullets might have hit furniture which was later moved. "Those holes could be anywhere," said LaVigne.

One of the major pieces of physical evidence that prosecutors focused on turned out to be incorrect. At least three of the eyewitnesses who testified for the government said they believed Siddiqui fired the gun into a wall where FBI investigators had found two holes. But this was undermined last week when jurors were shown a short video clip filmed before the shooting that showed the two holes the government said came from the M-4 rifle Siddiqui allegedly fired.

It is not disputed that the U.S. team went to the Afghan National Police headquarters in Ghazni on July 18, 2008, nor that Siddiqui was left unsecured behind the curtain in the room where the U.S. team came to interrogate her. Siddiqui herself told jurors last week that she heard the U.S. team enter and walked towards the opening in the curtain to take a look. But what happened next is very much in dispute. The heart of the prosecution's case has come from the eyewitness accounts of nine individuals, six of whom were in the room at the time of the shooting. LaVigne likened the shooting to a car accident, saying it was sudden, scary, and unexpected. "Did every witness see the event the same way?" he said. "Of course not. That's not how life works." He said the discrepancies in the witness accounts could, in fact, be seen as proof that the witnesses had not tried to "get their stories straight." But their accounts, he said, "still corroborate each other on the main points. Defendant with gun, defendant firing gun." LaVigne challenged the defense to "see if they can explain to you why nine different people came in here and lied."

"This wasn't a car accident," said attorney Linda Moreno in the defense's closing statement. "The government wants you to ignore the non-existent physical evidence." Moreno told jurors that unless they were sure of what happened in the room at the time of the shooting, they could not convict Siddiqui. "They want to scare you into convicting Aafia Siddiqui," she said. "Fear has absolutely no place in this courtroom. Fear has no place in America." Moreno repeatedly invoked the room in the Afghan National Police headquarters where the shooting occurred as the "impersonal witness" in the case. She questioned how Siddiqui managed to get two shots off without hitting any of the estimated 20 people who were there at the time, and how there was no physical evidence from the M-4 yet ample evidence from the 9mm revolver that the U.S. warrant officer used to shoot Siddiqui. "They tried mightily," said Moreno of the prosecution, "but they were unable to find a shred of evidence to prove that rifle was fired in that room."

Moreno also went through a litany of the discrepencies in the eyewitness testimony, saying that at times the witnesses even contradicted their own prior statements. The chief warrant officer, she said, described for jurors how when he first saw Siddiqui she was squaring off to shoot the gun, but at another point in his testimony he said he first saw her as she lunged for the gun and made a split-second decision to let her grab it while he unholstered his sidearm. Moreno recalled the testimony of the defense's expert witness, William Tobin, a forensic metallurgist who investigated the TWA flight 800 crash while working at the FBI. Tobin testified last week that over 200 people had claimed they saw a ball of fire moving towards the plane, suggesting a missile had hit the plane. But the crash turned out to be the result of a short circuit that ignited one of the plane's fuel tanks. "If 200 people can be wrong, six people can be wrong," said Moreno, referring to the six eyewitnesses who were in the room at the time of the shooting. "The science doesn't lie."

In the government's rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Rody, said the defense's focus on the absence of forensic evidence was a "diversion" and argued eyewitnesses at the scene of the shooting were neither confused nor covering up the truth. "Those inconsistencies to us are the hallmark of truth," said Rody. "The one thing I'm still waiting to hear is what was their motive to lie?" If jurors believed Siddiqui that meant they "have to believe all these guys conspired and colluded to convict this one poor woman." He asked them to consider why the U.S. soldiers and FBI agents and their interpreters would risk their careers to lie.

The question of whom to believe is central in this case, and overlaying the evidence of what happened in the room at the Afghan National Police Headquarters on July 18, 2008, are the incriminating documents allegedly found on Siddiqui when she was arrested. The government scored a major victory at the start of the trial when the judge ruled the documents were admissible in order to show her intent. In the prosecution's closing arguments the documents were referred to as "a roadmap of destruction," and though they have no direct bearing on the crime Siddiqui stands accused of, they have been regularly invoked throughout the trial. "Her intent, her motive was to harm those soldiers," said LaVigne. The prosecution questioned Siddiqui's credibility based on the vague answers she gave during her testimony last week, when she was asked about the documents. Though her own attorneys agreed the documents matched her handwriting, on the stand Siddiqui said she did not know how they got into her bag. She told jurors the bag had been packed for her. "The two lies she told about the documents and the pistol course absolutely crystal clear shows her intent to harm Americans," said Rody. "And if she's lying about that, you can't believe anything she says."

Prosecutors said the documents reveal "not only did she have the motive to attack the U.S., she had the knowledge and the know-how." But with the exception of a few snippets presented in court documents and during the trial these last two weeks, most of the content in the documents remains unknown. Prosecutors have sought and received a protective order from Judge Richard Berman that effectively seals them from public view, despite the fact that they were posted on an overhead projector numerous times in open court throughout the trial. In the snippets that were revealed in the courtroom, the level of Siddiqui's know-how seemed questionable. One page showed a crude sketch of a gun that was described as a "match gun" that operates by lighting a match.

At least one of the jurors appeared to doze off during part of the summations, but others scribbled notes in yellow legal pads during the approximately three hours of summations. The eight benches in the public gallery were full, but Siddiqui did not appear at all throughout the day. The central mysteries that still surround her case remained largely undiscussed. Where was she during the five years before she appeared in Ghazni? Where are her two children who are still missing? Siddiqui in her testimony last week alluded to secret prisons and torture, but was reined in by the judge before she could elaborate. The prosecution in their closing arguments called her testimony "ridiculous, evasive, self-serving lies," and said the mention of secret prisons was "classic diversion." Her defense team said "Something very bad happened to Aafia Siddiqui. But this case is not about that."


Petra Bartosiewicz




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Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming book, “The Best Terrorists We Could Find,” an investigation of terrorism trials in the U.S. since 9/11, will be published by Nation Books in 2010. She has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Salon.com and Hustler, and has worked in radio for the weekly program, This American Life, where her 2005 piece, “The Arms Trader,” was a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Scripps Howard Awards, and another piece, “The Prosecutor,” won the 2009 Newswomen’s Club of New York Award. She got her start in journalism at The New York Observer and later attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case in the November 2009 issue of Harper’s magazine (www.harpers.org) and at her website www.petrabart.com She can be reached at petrabart@petrabart.com.


USA vs Aafia Siddiqui - Day 12 (The jury was still deliberating on day 11)​



Feb 3, 2010, DAY 12

After a day and a half of deliberation, a 12-member jury found Siddiqui guilty today on charges that she tried to kill a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan in 2008. The verdict was announced just after 2 p.m. in a packed courtroom. Siddiqui remained silent as each juror answered "yes" when asked if she was guilty on all counts. As the jury was ushered from the courtroom, Siddiqui spoke out, saying, "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America," and then turned to the spectator gallery and said, "Your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof."

Siddiqui now faces up to 50 years in prison on seven charges, including attempted murder, assault, and possession of a firearm while committing a violent crime. The firearm charge alone carries a mandatory minimum of 30 years in prison. Sentencing is set for May 6 in the same courtroom where her nearly three-week trial took place. Within minutes of the verdict news sites and blogs had spread the word of Siddiqui's conviction. The case has been widely reported in the Pakistani press and protests and vigils have been held for Siddiqui in Pakistan. Outside the courthouse, her attorney Elaine Sharp said Siddiqui was "adamant she doesn't want to see any violent protest" as a result of the verdict. Defense attorney Charles Swift told reporters the case was about "fear versus fact," and said that prosecutors portrayed Siddiqui as a terrorist though she was not charged with any terrorism offense. The prosecution team of Christopher LaVigne, David Rody and Jenna Dabbs did not comment publicly. A statement later released by the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, said the jury had "brought Aafia Siddiqui to justice."

Over the past two days of deliberations jurors periodically sent notes to the judge requesting to see the testimony of various witnesses. At one point they returned to the courtroom to inspect the M-4 rifle Siddiqui is said to have fired at the U.S. team, and the 9mm revolver the U.S. Army chief warrant officer used to shoot her. Periodic laughter could be heard coming from the jury room today as deliberations continued. When jurors sent word that they had reached a verdict, the prosecution and defense teams filed into the courtroom. U.S. Marshals and court security officers ringed the spectator gallery and Siddiqui was brought into the courtroom from the holding cell she has spent much of the trial in. Siddiqui's brother, Mohammed, who has attended every day of the trial and taken detailed notes throughout the proceedings, sat several rows directly behind his sister. At the announcement of the verdict he shook his head and put his notepad back into his suit pocket.

Jurors did not find that the shooting was premeditated, which would have carried a potential life sentence, but Siddiqui may get effectively just that because prosecutors are expected to ask the judge to apply a terrorism enhancement, which will likely push her sentence towards the maximum number of years. In addition to the mandatory 30 years in prison she faces on the firearm charge, she could get as many as 20 years in prison on two charges of attempted murder and assault, as well as 8 years on three lesser assault charges. Her sentence on the attempted murder and assault charges may be served concurrently, but the sentence on the firearms charge must be served consecutively.

Although Siddiqui was not charged with terrorism, prosecutors cast her as a would-be terrorist by introducing documents she was allegedly found with in Ghazni, Afghanistan on July 17, 2008, the day before the shooting incident. The documents, which reference "cells," "dirty bombs" and a "mass casualty attack," and name New York City landmarks like the Empire State Building, were the subject of fierce wrangling by prosecutors and defense attorneys. On the eve of the trial Judge Richard Berman ruled in favor of the prosecution and said they could introduce the documents to show Siddiqui's intent in the shooting. Siddiqui's defense team acknowledged the documents were in her hand, but when Siddiqui took the stand in her defense she did little to clarify where they were from or why she had them, saying only that she had not packed her bag and didn't know how she got them. She later suggested she copied the text on the documents from a magazine. Prosecutors said the documents demonstrated Siddiqui had the "knowledge and the know-how" to attack the U.S. The excerpts shown in court, however, suggested something less than a master terrorist. One page showed a crude sketch of a gun that was described as a "match gun" that operates by lighting a match. In the absence of any counter-narrative from the defense, the documents remained suggestively incriminating and provided a backdrop for the charges. Full page excerpts of the documents were shown in open court on an overhead projector during the trial, but were too distant for those in the spectator gallery to make out the words, and the judge later issued a protective order sealing their contents from public view.

Because the charges against Siddiqui were limited to the shooting in Ghazni, the trial unfolded in a kind of vacuum. Early in the case Siddiqui's defense team suggested she was a victim of the "dark side," picked up by Pakistani or U.S. intelligence, but prosecutors insisted they found no evidence she'd ever been illegally detained. By the time of the trial, no mention was made of Siddiqui's whereabouts during her five missing years. No explanation was given as to why a would-be terrorist would wander around openly with a slew of almost theatrically incriminating materials in her possession. No questions were raised about the whereabouts of her two missing children, one of whom is a U.S. citizen. And yet, references to the backstory came trickling out in ways that must have seemed strange to the jurors, who were given strict instructions not to read anything about Siddiqui or the case. During Siddiqui's testimony she made numerous references to "secret prisons" and "torture." FBI agents also testified that Siddiqui told them she believed her missing children were likely dead, and that she was worried for the safety of her eldest son, with whom she'd been found in Ghazni. Her statements, like her outbursts in the courtroom, were dismissed by prosecutors as calculated attempts to sabotage the proceedings. Her defense attorneys, who made an unsuccessful appeal to the judge to have her blocked from testifying in her defense, said she was mentally unstable. Siddiqui's mental health will likely be a major issue on appeal. After she was brought to the U.S. to face charges in August 2008, the court initially found her mentally incompetent, but after an extensive psychiatric evaluation the decision was reversed and she was deemed fit to stand trial.


Petra Bartosiewicz



- End of Trial -​
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here's good summary


[video=youtube;fAdIfcaDpD8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAdIfcaDpD8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAdIfcaDpD8[/u[/video]
 
Interview of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's Family 1/5 with English subtitles


 
Last edited by a moderator:
The Nation​



Dr Aafia’s detention​
Published: March 30, 2010​


THE anger that one feels at the arbitrary arrest of Dr Aafia get further intensified as she completes seven years of detention. And thoughts inevitably turn to the fate of her three children, 9-year old Maryam and two young sons who went missing with her. Their abduction, for which her sister Dr Fouzia points a finger at the US, is condemnable to say the least.

This is not simply the height of moral degradation; it shows a ruthless feature of the war on terror, a fiendish plot that has dragged the little kids into it. At first, the US authorities confirmed that one of her sons was in their custody but later they retracted. However, the family is of the firm belief that they are being held captives either by the FBI or some intelligence agency in Pakistan. Dr Fouzia’s revelation before the media that she had been threatened by the intelligence agents with dire consequences if she raised her voice on the issue of their release shows that they are held by these very men harassing her. The intelligence agents working under the Musharraf regime colluded with the US, picked up Dr Aafia and her children; they must be quizzed. The Interior Ministry, ordered by the Supreme Court to look into the case of the missing persons, must now leave no stone unturned in securing the release of Dr Aafia and her children.

The government must understand that the general feeling of outrage in Pakistan at the US for making a monster out of Dr Aafia is beginning to turn into a popular movement. The US courts, though failed to find evidence against her, did not set her free. It was, indeed, impossible for a frail woman to overpower a group of commandoes; rather they took the FBI version as gospel truth. Several civil society groups and political parties have announced protest rallies for the recovery of Dr Aafia, her children as well as the missing persons in Pakistan. The government needs to act firmly for at stake is its credibility as a people-friendly set-up.





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Pakistan Observer​

‘Aggrieved Aafia’ and America​
Tuesday, March 30, 2010, Rabi ul Thani 13, 1431​

Nighat Leghari

After having implicated Dr Aafia Siddiqui in a false and fabricated case and keeping her in a secret prison for seven long years, the US court of justice have given the verdict which provided a laugh line to the world jurists community. Coming out form the court house even the defense Attorney, Linda Moreno wearing a worn out smile said, “Now I have no faith in American justice system. I completely disagree with this partisan verdict we will go into an appeal against this verdict. She further revealed in her closing statement “The case is about “Fear versus Facts”.

The prosecutor portrayed Dr. Aafia as a terrorist, though she was not charged with any terrorism offences but prosecutor charged her as “would be terrorist”. The verdict she said explains the fear versus facts but I say there is no room for fear in the court room, it indicated that verdict of the jurors took over fear of the US justice system. The verdict confirmed that it is impossible for Muslim terrorism suspects to receive a fair trial in USA courts. Is it not a biased behavior of the court that no Muslim media was allowed to cover the proceedings of the court or snapping up Dr. Aafia a torn up Muslim convict. Defense Attorney cleared up that prosecution had proved no physical evidence and their witness testimonies were inconsistent.

Does it not sound ridiculous that verdict charges her for assaulting 4 US nationals with M 4 riffle and had got a list of terror targets in New York landmarks including the State of Liberty, Brookly Bridge and the Empire State Building, and instructions how to makes a bomb. Another defense attorney, Charles Swift said, “my client Dr. Aafia who has earned her Doctorate Degree in Neurocongnitive science degree from Brandies University of America was kept in secret prison for seven long years without any legal representation.

The ill-fated Dr. Aafia narrating the gory story of her long agonizing arrest in US said, “I was kidnapped with my three small kids and kept in a secret jail where I suffered unbelievable physical mental and psychological torture by the US soldiers during interrogation, many times I confronted death owing to pains but I think pain is a state of mind either your give into it or not and I chose “NOT”. The cruel culture of US prospects of justice are not good for any Muslim than how Dr. Aafia could receive any genuine justice form it.It is said that after the jurors left the court room Dr. Aafia showing no emotions shouted, “I know where the verdict has come from”. Dr. Aafia has been declared as the terrorist but the jury could not prove it.

Factually she did not practice terrorism but the Americans dugout in her inner the hatred against the US terrorism against the Muslims and now the only alternate was with them to declared her terrorist. Dr. Aafia is a Muslim through and through how long she could see and hear the massive killings of her innocent co-Muslims. Being a weaker gender she was not in a position to express her anguish and alarm in practical form but she developed hatred against the US terrorists in her mind. May she had expressed her inner hatred at any place and the US forces like a sniffer dog held her.

The strange fact is this no Pakistani official of the Pakistan Embassy was present on the seat reserved for them. If a female member of one family is kidnapped the whole of the family even if it is on rifts get together and sit not silent unless they recover the female, but to our great disappointment US has kidnapped a young Fulbright doctor (Dr. Aafia ) of Pakistan in daybright light, but we are not in a position to snub our Exacting Master (USA). We cannot show even our anger or anguish to US because the United States of America has the power to make and break the Kings in Pakistan. If somewhat is being done in this case by the Government it is all under wrap and under lip, this apathetic action is shameful. Dr. Aafia I have no words on my command to express my grief over your griefs. I believe religion must has provided you the opportunity to peep into your Inner self and you must have come across with various pleasant spiritual experiences during your odd moments. You must have Meditated on the real purposes of life which had provided you a super human stamina. God does not put burden greater that one can bear. All nights give way to bright mornings. You are still in US snare but being Muslim look forward for a Divine Interrerence.

You have been declared guilty in Mahattan Fedral Court of America but I believe you will be released from the “Supreme Court of Almighty” who commands the whole world and who is not vindictive or biased for any one of His creatures. Bravo, Dr. Aafia I wish you all the Best for all the times to come. I salute to your self-restraint, with which you rebounced the ruses of US rafians.





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