USA v Aafia Siddiqui

Cageprisoners Inside the Courtroom Coverage

In January 2010 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. Her two week trial resulted in a guilty verdict on all counts. Siddiqui now faces life in prison. Her sentencing is scheduled for May 6, 2010. Independent journalist Petra Bartosiewicz covered the daily proceedings in Siddiqui's trial from New York City for Cageprisoners:

January 19, 2010 (DAY 1)

Jurors heard opening statements today from the prosecution and defense, and the testimony of three government witnesses, U.S. Army Captain Robert Snyder, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain John Caleb Threadcraft, and FBI Special Agent John Jefferson. Before jurors were brought in Siddiqui, who has said she is boycotting the trial, once again protested against being forcibly brought to the courthouse. Judge Richard Berman gave her two options: Come to the courthouse and be present during the proceedings, or come to the courthouse and remain in a holding cell next to the courtroom where she could view the proceedings on a television monitor with adjustable volume. Either way, said Berman, she must come to the courthouse, which means undergoing a daily strip search. The judge denied pleas from both defense and prosecution to excuse Siddiqui from the trial. One of the prosecutors suggested Siddiqui was being put in a Catch-22 situation, where if she abstained from the proceedings she would still have to go through the strip search which was her primary reason for not wanting to come to court.
Opening statements for the government were made by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Dabbs, who recounted the events surrounding the shooting in Ghazni, Afghanistan on July 18, 2008. Dabbs described how a team of U.S. soldiers, translators and FBI agents, entered a room on the second floor of the Afghan National Police headquarters. The room was divided by a curtain, behind which was Siddiqui, the woman they were there to see. Seconds after the U.S. team entered the room Siddiqui grabbed an automatic rifle and through a gap in the curtain she "raised the rifle to her shoulder, and in perfect English said, 'Get out of here!'" said Dabbs. "The defendant saw an opportunity and she acted on it. She picked up an assault rifle, pointed it at the soldiers, and tried to shoot them. Moments later they were looking down the barrel of a gun. As everyone in the room realized what was happening it was absolute chaos. Everyone ran, jumped, dove, and scrambled." The interpreter grabbed the rifle by the barrel and stock and tried to pry it out of Siddiqui's hands, said Dabbs. She continued to struggle. She was shot once in the abdomen. "But the defendant wasn't done yet," said Dabbs, telling jurors that even after Siddiqui was shot, she struggled and shouted, "I hate Americans," and "You will die by my blood," and "Death to America." Dabbs told jurors Siddiqui is being tried in the U.S. because "the victims of her crime were U.S. citizens, U.S. soldiers, agents, and people working for them."
"How are we going to prove the charges?" asked Dabbs. "You'll hear from soldiers and agents, from an army captain who only when he saw the defendant slightly fumble with the gun realized he had a chance to get out." Other witnesses will include a female Army medic who was seated by the curtain when she saw it move, "almost as if it had been blown by a gust of wind." The government will present documents that refer to chemical and biological weapons and to attacks on the U.S. The defendant's fingerprints are on the documents and they are written in her own hand." The admission of the documents, which prosecutors allege were found on Siddiqui at the time of her arrest in Ghazni, has been a major point of contention between the government and defense. Last week the judge ruled the documents could be presented to the jury, and based on today's proceedings it's clear they will be a centerpiece of the government's case. What the jurors would not see, said Dabbs, were fingerprints on the M-4 rifle Siddiqui is alleged to have shot, bullet fragments or shell casings from the M-4. The reason for this is that "the chaos that unfolded in that room was quickly matched by chaos at the compound," namely, "dozens and dozens" of Afghan police who were holding automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades. The U.S. soldiers, she said, were not able to return for a week to secure the scene. She said the prosecution will present an expert who will tell the jurors that it is not unusual for an M-4 rifle not to retain fingerprints. "They'll never forget the moment they were convinced they were going to die," said Dabbs of the soldiers in the room where the shooting occurred.
"This case is going to come down to a single question," said attorney Charles Swift in the defense team's opening statements. "Did Aafia Siddiqui gain control of an M-4?" Through a series of diagrams of the room where the shooting occurred, Swift reconstructed the timeline of events at the time of the shooting, demonstrating where each of the U.S. soldiers and FBI agents in the room was positioned. He also told the jury the defense would present the testimony of Abdul Qadeer, a detective with the Afghan police, who interviewed Siddiqui after she was brought to the police station. Qadeer questioned Siddiqui, said Swift, and admitted to beating her with a cane. He was present when the U.S. team arrived to question Siddiqui, and says he saw a very different scene unfold than what the government alleges. Swift told jurors Qadeer saw the U.S. warrant officer, "walk to the curtain and behind the curtain. What he heard was a struggle and then shots fired. He didn't see the defendant get a rifle. He saw the rifle near the wall and says he didn't see the defendant anywhere near it." Swift also said the defense would prove that while there was ample forensic evidence that Siddiqui was shot (including shell casings, her blood on the carpet, bullet holes in the wall behind her), there was no forensic evidence that she fired any shots herself or ever touched the rifle.
Immediately after Swift's opening statements, the government called its first witness, U.S. Army Captain Robert Snyder, who was present in the room at the Ghazni police station when the shooting occurred. Snyder explained to jurors the basic layout of U.S. military operations in and around Ghazni. "I was almost killed," he said when asked to summarize the events of July 18, 2008. He recounted how at around 1 a.m. on July 18, he was awoken by his staff with the news that a woman had been captured with documents that indicated threats against the U.S. "According to Afghan police, the individual appeared to be conducting an attack at the governor's house," said Snyder. He said he was shown a series of documents allegedly found on Siddiqui at the time of her arrest. The author of the documents "appeared American or had lived in America." The documents "very clearly indicated types of attacks," and "what appeared to be targets in New York City."
As the prosecutor began to show some of the documents to the jury, Siddiqui raised her head and addressed the courtroom, saying she'd been held in a secret prison and that her children had been taken from her. "This is not a list of targets," she said in reference to the documents. "I never was planning to bomb anything. You have to give me credit." U.S. Marshals removed her from the courtroom and she did not return for the rest of the day.
Snyder recounted how he and his team were initially given the runaround by the Afghans and were told by the governor of Ghazni Province, Usman Usmani, that they could not take custody of Siddiqui as they had wanted to. The governor, said Snyder, told them he had been personally called by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and told not to turn Siddiqui over. The U.S. team was instead given permission to question Siddiqui and to establish her identity. Snyder said after the team was granted permission they were led to a room on the second floor of the police station. Upon entering he said there were a number of Afghans and that eventually most of the U.S. team came in. Snyder described how he sat against a wall with the curtain two seats to his right. The U.S. warrant officer was nearest to the curtain. Snyder indicated the team was not aware that Siddiqui was behind the curtain and that he was speaking to one of the Afghan counterterrorism officials to explain the team's intentions to question her. "I heard noise to my right," he said. He described a female voice saying, "May the blood of something be on your head or hands." He couldn't recall exactly what the speaker said, but remembered that it was in English. "I was the only one seated with a good line of sight. I turned to the right. The curtain was opened wider. What I saw was a female sitting on the bed attempting to shoulder a rifle pointed at my head. I could see the barrel edges." Snyder was still seated. "I looked at the individual holding the rifle and at that time I was certain there was nothing I could do to get out of the line of fire. It was at that point that she hesitated for a second. I figured she didn't know all the components." In that split second, Snyder says, he launched himself out of his chair and began to flee the room. Before he was out the door he heard several shots go off. He got out of the room but returned a few seconds later when he'd been able to unholster his 9 mm revolver. When he returned he saw the U.S. warrant officer standing over Siddiqui's body.
"He said he'd hit her. At that point she was on the bed fighting."
Snyder then described how he and the warrant officer restrained Siddiqui and after she'd received medical aid they carried her down the stairs to a waiting vehicle and drove her to the U.S. forward operating base. Snyder said Siddiqui fought the soldiers even after she was shot. "She was very very resistant. She was pleading off and on for us to just kill her instead of detaining her. I said that's not going to happen."
Snyder said that after the shooting he did not see Siddiqui again. He said the U.S. warrant officer, whose M-4 Siddiqui allegedly grabbed, appeared to believe he'd "saved the day" by shooting her. But Snyder said he disagreed and that he felt the warrant officer was partly to blame for the incident because he'd left his weapon unsecured. Snyder said that shortly after the incident he was approached by the warrant officer's captain who wanted to write the warrant officer up for a Silver Star for valorous conduct in the incident. Snyder said he "wouldn't support it."
The prosecution called John Caleb Threadcraft, an infantry captain in Ghazni at the time of the shooting. Threadcraft said his primary duty was to serve as a liaison with the National Security Forces (which include the Afghan National Police, the Afghan National Army, and the National Security Directorate, which serves as Afghanistan's equivalent to the CIA).  Threadcraft said he developed a close working relationship with Governor Usmani, who called him on Jan. 17 and said, "I captured a female bombmaker." Usmani brought Threadcraft a black handbag allegedly belonging to Siddiqui and turned the bag's contents over to him, including a woman's clothing, a thumb drive, documents, and various jars of substances that looked like makeup. Threadcraft said he saw words written in English in the documents such as "dirty bomb," "bioweapons," and "Ebola." Threadcraft then attempted to broker an agreement with the Afghans to turn Siddiqui over to the U.S., but despite having the governor's support he was unable to gain custody of her. He was not part of the team that went to interview Siddiqui.
FBI Special Agent John Jefferson, who was one of the agents sent to Ghazni shortly after Siddiqui was picked up, testified that he and his partner, Special Agent Eric Negron, arrived in Ghazni by helicopter from Salerno, in the Khost Province on the morning of July 18. Like Snyder, he described the difficulties the team had in getting permission to take custody of Siddiqui. He was in the room when the shooting took place, but there were several differences between his and Snyder's version of events. Snyder had said the curtain behind which Siddiqui was located was partially open when he first came in, but Jefferson said it was closed to the wall. Jefferson said that the warrant officer "pulled the curtain to his left," and looked to the left and right, but apparently did not see Siddiqui. Snyder said the chief warrant officer did not look behind the curtain. (According to the diagrams shown to the jury earlier in the day, the dimensions of the room are approximately 12' by 26' and the area in which Siddiqui was located was approximately 12' x 12', and was empty except for two cots.) Approximately two minutes later he said the shooting started. He looked to the left and saw his partner, Negron and the warrant officer standing over Siddiqui, and that the two were attempting to subdue her. "J.J. I need cuffs!" Jefferson said Negron yelled to him. "We were on the ground with her and Eric was trying to apply some medical treatment," said Jefferson.

January 20, 2010 (DAY 2)

Testimony continued with the direct examination of FBI Special Agent John Jefferson. Jefferson, who was on the stand yesterday afternoon, recounted the scene of the shooting in Ghazni. He said just after Siddiqui was shot, his partner Eric Negron called out to him for handcuffs. "There was a pool of blood on the right side," he said. Jefferson assisted Negron in subduing Siddiqui and cuffed her hands and her ankles. Jefferson said a stretcher was brought up to the room (an account that differs from that of Captain Snyder, who testified yesterday that the stairs were too narrow and so they had personally carried Siddiqui down to a waiting Humvee). Jefferson said that by the time he and the others got downstairs a tense scene had unfolded as approximately twenty armed Afghan National Police officers had assembled outside. Jefferson said he remembers seeing a rocket propelled grenade launcher pointed at his head.
Siddiqui was transported to the forward operating base in Ghazni and put in a small triage unit. Jefferson recalled that shortly afterwards he saw two Afghan intelligence officers who had been in the room at the time of the shooting. They had with them "a document stating that they did not have anything to do with what just occurred," and asked Jefferson and his partner to sign it to absolve them of any responsibility for the shooting. "We were like, we're not allowed to sign anything," said Jefferson.
At the Ghazni triage Siddiqui was given just enough medical attention "to sustain her," and was then flown by Black Hawk helicopter to another forward operating base in Afghanistan known as "Orgun-E," where she underwent surgery. Jefferson and Negron were on the flight, along with the pilot and a crew chief who doubled as a medic. Afterwards Siddiqui was transported to Bagram Air Base, arriving at approximately 1 a.m. Jefferson brought with him brown paper bags containing the documents that Siddiqui was allegedly found with in Ghazni. The thumb drive, which had apparently been misplaced while in Ghazni was delivered to Bagram shortly after he arrived with Siddiqui.
On cross examination, defense attorney Linda Moreno asked if Jefferson saw Siddiqui either touch or fire a weapon in Ghazni. He said no. In his statement to the FBI on July 21, 2008, just a few days after the shooting, he said he heard four rounds fired in the room in Ghazni, but did not describe the nature of the rounds in his statement. But in his previous day of testimony at the trial, Jefferson had said he was certain that he heard two sets of shots that had each come from a different gun. When asked by Moreno about the discrepency, Jefferson said that given his long experience with firearms, "there is no doubt in my mind that two rounds came from different weapons."
The government's called Ahmad Gul, an Afghan translator present in the room in Ghazni. Gul, 27-years-old, was born in Afghanistan and lived in Pakistan for a time before returning to his native country to work as a translator with the U.S Army. He speaks Dari, Farsi, Urdu, and English. Gul explained how translators are generally assigned to a specific person in a unit, mostly warrant officers and captains. In the summer of 2008, Gul "mostly went out with the chief warrant officer." He was with the warrant officer's team as they went into the room where Siddiqui was being held behind the curtain. Gul was positioned with the rest of the U.S. team and the other Afghans present to the right of the curtain. "I turned around and I hit the curtain with my left hand and I saw a female holding a gun pointed at the chief warrant officer and the Ministry of Interior representatives, and she shot the gun," he said. "Right away I lunged towards her and I pushed her towards the wall." Gul said he grabbed both the barrel and the stock of the gun and struggled to gain control of the weapon. "I was worried I'd get shot and at that time she shot again." The second bullet went in the same direction as the first. The struggle continued, and "she pushed me back into the middle of the room," he said. "The chief warrant officer was two meters behind me with his pistol shooting towards me while I was wrestling with the female detainee." The warrant officer then shot Siddiqui, despite the fact that she was using Gul as a shield. "As soon as she was shot, right away I snatched her gun. The chief warrant officer pushed her towards the bed."
The question of whether the warrant officer checked behind the curtain at some point before the shooting occurred was revisited on cross examination. Earlier Gul said the warrant officer did not look behind the curtain, but when asked the question by defense attorney Linda Moreno, he said he didn't know. Moreno showed him a statement he gave the FBI less than a week after the shooting, which apparently contradicted the answer he had just given her. He said he did not remember telling the agents what was written there. She asked if he read and initialed every paragraph at the time he gave the statement and he said he had. Gul said the U.S. sponsored his visa and his flight to the U.S. was paid for. He was given money for rent, food and transportation ("less than $4,000," he said). Gul said he considered the chief warrant officer a "brother and a friend."
The government introduced a forensic expert, FBI Special Agent Dale Hutson, who photographed the materials allegedly seized with Siddiqui in Ghazni and fingerprinted her when she was at Bagram Air Base. Hutson said the M-4 rifle which Siddiqui allegedly fired was not among the materials he catalogued, but arrived some days later. Another prosecution witness, FBI Special Agent Todd Schmitt, told jurors he transported the materials from Bagram to Washington DC in his backpack. FBI Special Agent Shelly Sine told jurors she took fingerprint impressions from Siddiqui in New York in August 2008, shortly after she was flown in from Ghazni. D.J. Fife, a forensic examiner with the FBI, testified that he'd been tasked with obtaining latent prints from the documents and other materials brought in from Ghazni, including the rifle, which was eventually flown to FBI headquarters in Quantico, VA. Fife described the various processes by which latent prints can be obtained and how a multitude of factors affect the ability to get a usable print. He told jurors that of 106 pages of documents he received from Ghazni, 33 pages had fingerprints of value. He attempted to lift prints from the rifle, using various techniques including exposing the surface to Superglue vapors that bind to any moisture and can sometimes reveal latent prints. He found no fingerprints on the rifle. Fife said it was not unusual for a gun to yield no usable prints, because fingerprints on non-porous surfaces like metal can easily be smudged or wiped off, even by casual contact. He said the rifle's surfaces are "stibbled" to provide for easy grip, and that these types of surfaces do not yield good prints.

January 21, 2010 (DAY 3)

Prosecutors continued to present their case today, shifting their focus from eyewitness testimony to how evidence at the scene was secured. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Dabbs showed jurors numerous photographs and a video of the room on the second floor of the Afghan police station where the shooting took place, and a photo of the cell where Siddiqui was held when she was first brought to the station on July 17. FBI Special Agent Gordon Hurley, who made three trips to Ghazni in July, August and October 2008, secured evidence at the scene of the shooting and interviewed U.S. and Afghan witnesses. Hurley's first trip was relatively short, but he said he took statements from witnesses at the scene, including Captain Snyder and his translator Ahmad Gul (both of whom gave testimony on the first day of this trial), Staff Sergeant Lamont Williams, FBI Special Agents Eric Negron and John Jefferson, and the chief warrant officer. While in Ghazni in July, Hurley made a preliminary investigation of the room where the shooting took place and took custody of both the M-4 automatic rifle that prosecutors say Siddiqui used to fire at the U.S. team and the 9 mm revolver that the chief warrant officer used to shoot her. The jurors were invited to handle both weapons as they were passed around the jury box. Hurley estimated the M-4 weighed 7.5 pounds and possibly as much as 9 pounds with the various scopes that had been attached to it at the time of the shooting. He said he left the three sighting scopes in Ghazni with U.S. Army Captain John Kendall, after Kendall told him they did not have replacement devices and needed them for their ongoing combat operations.
Hurley returned to Ghazni again in August 2008 to conduct further interviews with witnesses, including Afghan military, civilian and police officials, as well as U.S. soldiers. He told jurors he wanted to establish an evidentiary "chain of custody" for evidence seized at the time of the shooting, which included not just the weapons but also the documents and other materials Siddiqui was allegedly arrested with. Hurley estimated he and his partner interviewed as many as 30 individuals. He was looking for any additional eyewitnesses and for friends or relatives of Siddiqui. He also went to the local bazaar in Ghazni and interviewed shopkeepers there. During this trip he returned to the Ghazni police compound to do a more thorough investigation of the crime scene, where he conducted a more extensive examination of the room, including the area where bullets from the gun Siddiqui allegedly fired were thought to be lodged. Despite several probes, including removing a chunk of the wall itself, Hurley and his partner were unable to locate any bullets from the area. Hurley inspected the back area where Siddiqui was standing just before the shooting and found a "projectile," or portion of a bullet, that was later found to be from the 9 mm revolver used by the chief warrant officer.
Defense attorney Dawn Cardi questioned why Hurley did not return to Ghazni sooner after his first visit to continue his investigation and to retrieve evidence like the curtain that divided the room, which might have contained gun shot residue and other evidence related to the shooting. Hurley said it wasn't easy to move around Afghanistan and that he hadn't tasked anyone with retrieving the curtain because there was "no one to call." He said that he and his partner returned as soon as they could get permission but that they didn't ask for any special dispensation to get there faster. Cardi also asked Hurley why he didn't do more to resolve inconsistencies in the various statements of witnesses. "Eyewitnesses see things very differently," said Hurley. "You don't want to force people to make their statements match." He rejected the suggestion that he had not been skeptical enough in his interviews. "We're supposed to be skeptics," he said.
One of the major discrepancies in the testimony so far has been whether the chief warrant officer who shot Siddiqui looked behind the curtain where she was located before the shooting. Hurley recalled that FBI Special Agent John Jefferson told him the chief warrant officer had checked behind the curtain just before the shooting and given the "all clear." FBI Special Agent Eric Negron, he said, told him the warrant officer "glanced behind the curtain and saw no one was there." But Hurley could not remember what the other witnesses he interviewed said. He said he didn't recall speaking with FBI agents about a letter the Afghan intelligence officials supposedly asked them to sign to absolve them of responsibility for the shooting (see day 2 testimony from Special Agent John Jefferson).
Hurley later said that securing the evidence at the scene was a relatively low priority for the U.S. military in Ghazni Province at the time. "They were doing other stuff, right?" asked Dabbs.
"Fighting a war," said Hurley.
Security has increasingly tightened as the trial has progressed. A metal detector was installed outside the courtroom door on the second day and security guards made detailed searches of all bags. Jurors were told not to make any adverse inferences from the added security. Members of the general public have also been required to show photo identifications and court security guards have logged the name and address of each individual. At the conclusion of today's proceedings, defense attorney Charles Swift protested the identification requirement and said that it is not in keeping with Siddiqui's right to a free and open trial. The judge said he would look into it, though court security officers told spectators at the trial that the measures were on the direct order of the judge.

January 22, 2010 (DAY 4)

Despite vivid eyewitness testimony from a U.S. Army captain, an FBI agent, and a former U.S. Army translator earlier in the week, 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. On the forensic side, testimony from the government's experts has underscored the difficulty of proving the case with any scientific certainty. 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 shooting, leaving the crime scene unattended for nearly a week. 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.
Testimony continued today with a witness for the prosecution, Carlo Rosati, a forensic expert in firearms and ballistics, formerly at the FBI and now a contractor working with the bureau. Rosati described how he analyzed various materials taken from the crime scene at the Ghazni police station. Rosati, who said he did not travel to Afghanistan or speak with any witnesses connected to the case, analyzed the gold curtain that divided the room, behind which Siddiqui was located just before the shooting. He did not find gunshot 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 the chief warrant officer used to shoot Siddiqui.
Much of Rosati's testimony focused on tests he conducted in an effort to find evidence of 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 the bullets were thought to be lodged, and gave a detailed account of the various visual, microscopic and chemical tests he performed. 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.
But Rosati said he could not rule out that the gun was not fired either, telling Assistant U.S. Attorney David Rody that the bullet could have ricocheted or been deflected.
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.
Defense attorneys will likely begin presenting their case at some point next week. Whether Siddiqui will testify in her own defense remains unknown. In recent weeks she has insisted she is boycotting the trial and has repeatedly tried to dismiss her defense attorneys. She was ejected from the courtroom earlier this week after speaking out. She remained silent in the jury's presence in subsequent proceedings until Friday, when she said 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.

January 25, 2010 (DAY 5)

One of the chief witnesses for the prosecution, the chief warrant officer whose M-4 automatic rifle Siddiqui is alleged to have grabbed, was called to the stand 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 and walked with the assistance of a cane. He wept as he told jurors of the blast which left his hearing impaired, severely burned, and his body gravely wounded below the waist. "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 that within hours of Siddiqui's arrest on July 17, 2008, he was shown documents and various other materials she allegedly had in her possession and decided to contact the FBI to assist in the investigation.
Siddiqui spoke out during the warrant officer's testimony and said she felt sorry for him and believed he said was covering for Captain Robert Snyder, another eyewitness who testified last week. "Don't do that. It will make America look bad in international court," she said, before being escorted from the courtroom.
Under direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher LaVigne, the warrant officer described going to the governor's mansion in Ghazni on July 18, 2008, the morning of the shooting. "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 gave the U.S. team permission to see Siddiqui. The warrant officer said he was told Siddiqui 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. 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 he 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 the second day of the trial) dove towards Siddiqui. "I fired two shots as she fired at the room." The officer said he shot Siddiqui 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 after that everything happened very fast. "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 motherfuckers." 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 contradicted 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.
Another witness to the shooting, female army medic Dawn Card, told jurors she remembered seeing Siddiqui pointing a gun in her direction before fleeing the room. But on cross examination Card was asked about a statement she 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 that it was the warrant officer who had left his weapon unattended. 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 subsequently banned from the courtroom.
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 protesting 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.

January 26, 2010 (DAY 6)

Siddiqui's attorneys 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 outbursts 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, the morning after Siddiqui was arrested by Afghan police. Negron was accompanied by Special Agent John Jefferson and Staff Sergeant Lamont Williams. He 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," he said.
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, 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 First Class 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 Jawid Amin, 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 U.S. Army medic Dawn Card, who testified yesterday she ran out as soon as the shooting started, was among them. 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 they anticipate calling two witnesses and will show a videotaped deposition taken in Afghanistan.

January 27, 2010 (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 Haqqani 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, greeted the ambassador warmly. 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.
Defense attorneys began to present their case, with testimony 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 said he has testified in some 225 trials, almost every time for the prosecution. He told jurors that for this case he 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 they say Siddiqui seized from a U.S. Army warrant officer. Tobin told jurors 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 sustained significant damage around the bullet hole, which he described as "spalling damage" that was the result of energy transfered from the bullet to the surface of impact. The photos and video of the wall in the Ghazni police station demonstrated no such "spalling damage." Tobin also described how the angle from which the gun was shot would have had a significant effect on the amount of damage to the wall, with the least amount of damage resulting from a bullet hitting the wall at a perpendicular angle. But such a scenario is unlikely given that the marks were near the ceiling. 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. He said it was unlikely the penetrator could have bounced back into the room, as prosecution witnesses suggested in earlier testimony. "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 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 and 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 rules on an application from defense attorneys seeking to bar her 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 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."
In a separate letter to the judge, prosecutors asked that he 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.