USA v Aafia Siddiqui

Cageprisoners Inside the Courtroom Coverage

by Petra Bartosiewicz

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 is a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, and Salon.com. Her forthcoming book on terrorism trials in the U.S., The Best Terrorists We Could Find, will be published by Nation Books early next year. You can find her investigation of Aafia Siddiqui’s case, “The Intelligence Factory: How America Makes its Enemies Disappear,” 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.

(taken from cageprisoners.com)