January 28, 2010 (DAY 8)
After days of vowing to boycott her own trial, Siddiqui 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 testifying 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 opportunity to introduce incriminating statements she allegedly made to FBI agents while recuperating from the gunshot wounds incurred in Ghazni. Prosecutors, meanwhile, urged the judge to permit Siddiqui to exercise her Fifth Amendment right to testify. On the 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 went off topic. She appeared eager to tell her story and was at times in good humor, and even giggled at some of the questions.
Although Siddiqui's testimony was the central focus of the day, there was another major development related to the physical evidence in the case when the defense played a short video clip for jurors. The clip came from a press conference that had taken place in same room as the shooting, but a few hours prior to the incident, and clearly showed two marks on a wall that the prosecution has been claiming were the result of the M-4 automatic rifle Siddiqui is alleged to have fired at the U.S. team. (The marks in the video were reportedly brought to the attention of Siddiqui's defense attorneys on Thursday morning by the prosecutors, who had themselves only noticed them the night before.) The clip was played 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 the statements she made were 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 Sercer 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." Sercer said she sat by Siddiqui's 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 Sercer. The purpose of the interviews, said Sercer, was to gather intelligence, not to discuss the shooting incident in Ghazni, which had already been assigned to a separate team of agents. But Sercer said she and Siddiqui did discuss the documents Siddiqui was allegedly found with in Ghazni. Prosecutors have introduced those documents, which include references to specific "cells," and a "mass casualty attack," and name landmarks like the Empire State Building, to show Siddiqui's intent in the shooting incident. "She indicated she enjoyed our discussions," said Sercer.
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 Sercer.
"If she wanted water she had to ask you?" said Swift.
"Correct," said Sercer.
"If she wanted to go to the bathroom she had to ask you?" said Swift.
"Correct," said Sercer.
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 whenever 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 Sercer, 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 she didn't talk to the agents she'd be transferred to the "bad guys." "I had been with a group of bad guys and I didn't want to go back," she said. 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." She was asked about her three children, Ahmad, who was found with her in Ghazni, and Mariam and Suleiman, who remain. 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.
At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, 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 Sharp, 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 bitch with us."
Asked by Sharp 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 Sharp.
"No," said Siddiqui.
January 29, 2010 (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. While on the stand Siddiqui had been asked if she ever received instruction at a gun club while living in Boston. "I have no recollection of that," she said. "Actually, you can take that as a no." But on Friday prosecutors called Gary Woodworth, a longtime member of the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club in Massachusetts, who said he instructed Siddiqui in a basic 12-hour pistol shooting course in the early 1990's. 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 FBI Special Agents Bruce Kamerman and Angela Sercer, the same agents who took the stand Thursday during a hearing meant to determine whether to permit Siddiqui to testify. When she took the stand Siddiqui told jurors Kamerman had mistreated her while she was in Bagram, watching her as her wounds were dressed and when she went to the bathroom. She denied making any statements to him. But Kamerman told jurors Siddiqui initiated a number of conversations with him, and told him she hadn't shot anyone in Ghazni. He said she told him she'd never before seen, handled or fired a rifle and she picked up the M-4 out of curiosity. "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. Defense attorney Elaine Sharp asked Kamerman whether he knew that Siddiqui was on a cocktail of medications such as Percocet and morphine and suggested Siddiqui's 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 videotaped depositions taken in Ghazni, Afghanistan from eyewitnesses to the shooting incident. Former deputy chief of counterterrorism in Ghazni, Abdul Qadeer, 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. 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. 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.
February 1, 2010 (DAY 10) Closing arguments
After nine days of testimony from eyewitnesses, experts and Siddiqui herself, jurors heard closing arguments Monday. 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 filthy 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 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 eyewitnesses who testified for the government said they believed Siddiqui fired the gun into a wall where FBI investigators found two holes. But the possibility that the holes were from bullets fired by Siddiqui was refuted 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 she heard the U.S. team enter and walked towards 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 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 discrepancies 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 revealed "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."
February 2, 2010 (DAY 11)
Juror deliberations.
February 3, 2010 (DAY 12) VERDICT
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 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 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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