"her fingerprints were not found on the gun and that there was no evidence it had been fired"
You gotta be kidding!
Related: Typical Terror Trial Coverage
Well, I sure called it, huh?
Also see: Dr. Aafia: US Fails To Link Her To Any Terror Group
"Scientist says she didn’t fire on Americans" by Associated Press | January 29, 2010
NEW YORK - A US-trained Pakistani scientist being tried on charges she tried to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan told a jury yesterday that she did not pick up a gun and fire at them....
Of course, you can't believe a crazy woman who was tortured, right?
Aafia Siddiqui told jurors her case is an example of how authorities frame people....
Sadly, I must admit, it happens WAY MORE than I am comfortable with.
The last few years have been a REAL EYE-OPENER in this regard!
Siddiqui has been prone to courtroom outbursts. She took the stand over the objections of her lawyers, who said her “diminished capacity’’ would turn her testimony into a “painful spectacle.’’
The Pakistani earned a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate from Brandeis University.
She has a doctorate from a Jewish university?
Is that when they got to her?
--more--"
And like I said, Globe comes in at the end with a big finish!
NEW YORK - After two days of deliberations, a jury yesterday found Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman with MIT and Brandeis degrees, guilty of attempted murder and assault of Americans in Afghanistan.
Following the verdict, Siddiqui, a 37-year-old former Roxbury resident, calmly addressed the spectators in the courtroom.
“This is a verdict coming from Israel, not from America,’’ she said, speaking through a white scarf that covered her face. “Your anger should be directed where it belongs.’’
Of course, you can't believe her, she's a crazy woman who was tortured and raped!
Yeah, just forget that hold on your political balls, AmeriKa.
A crazy terrorist said it so it can't be true, cui bono?
The verdict ends a two-week trial in which prosecutors used eyewitnesses - but little forensic evidence - to prove that Siddiqui grabbed a machine gun from an American soldier, who had come to interrogate her, and fired it toward his colleagues but missed.
Excuse me? Is this why the bulk of the trial wasn't covered?
Another soldier testified he barely escaped with his life, and an Afghan interpreter said he tried to wrestle the gun from her. She was subdued when a US soldier shot her in the abdomen.
The jury also heard from an employee of the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club, who said Siddiqui had taken a 12-hour pistol training course in the 1990s.
Defense lawyers, backed by expert witnesses, countered that her fingerprints were not found on the gun and that there was no evidence it had been fired.
WTF?
The verdict is expected to further strain relations between the United States and Pakistan, its essential ally against terrorism. Insisting she had been framed by the US government, Siddiqui said she had been tortured and held for years in a secret US prison. Many Pakistanis believed her and held huge rallies in support. The Pakistani government paid for her defense and has asked that she be sent home.
“We are dismayed over the unexpected verdict of the jury in Dr. Aafia Siddiqui case,’’ Nadeem Kiani, press attache of the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, said in a statement.
Here, too!!!!
“The government of Pakistan made intense diplomatic and legal efforts on her behalf.’’
Kind of halfhearted from what I read.
In rare circumstances, the United States can send foreigners convicted of crimes to serve their sentence in their home country. But a US official who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said that would be extremely unlikely in this case, because the United States and Pakistan have no formal extradition treaty and the two countries have such divergent views about Siddiqui.
“Here she is regarded as a criminal with ties to Al Qaeda and there she is regarded as a martyr,’’ he said.
US officials said....
Who gives a f*** what US liars said?
I'm so tired and tuned out to this lying government and its blather.
Even if its true, they and their MSM mouthpieces have BLOWN IT -- and the DAILY DOSE of LIES doesn't help!
Yesterday, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, a Marblehead lawyer on Siddiqui’s defense team, said she believes Siddiqui was kidnapped, tortured, and framed and that her three young children were also kidnapped.
“I think they were clearing out secret prisons and they dumped her out and set her up,’’ Sharp told reporters.
Yeah, EVEN the LAWYER KNOWS this was a FRAME JOB!
But Sharp also contended that Siddiqui is mentally ill. The defense team had unsuccessfully argued that she shouldn’t be allowed to take the stand.
Yeah, because SHE HAD BEEN TORTURED and RAPED and SAW HER CHILDREN TORTURED and RAPED!
That would DRIVE ANYONE MAD!!!!!!!!!!
Sharp said Siddiqui is calling for her supporters in Pakistan to peacefully accept the verdict.
“She doesn’t want there to be any violent protests or violent reprisals in Pakistan,’’ Sharp said. “That’s not what she is about.’’
Oh, man, through it all there is still that beautiful young girl in there!
Aaaah!!!
Even in the United States, Siddiqui’s case has struck a chord. In addition to her brother, Mohammed, who lives in Houston, a handful of supporters attended the trial each day. A 56-year-old Muslim man from Queens said he attended because he believed she had been abused and he was concerned about her fate, even though he didn’t know her personally.
When asked whether he thought the trial was fair, the man, who declined to give his name, said: “One individual fighting the most powerful country on earth? How could that be fair?’’
None of these trials are; they are for SHOW and FIXED from the start!
Yesterday, the jurors declined to comment on their decision as they left the courthouse.
Although they found Siddiqui guilty of two counts of attempted murder, they ruled it was not premeditated, so she no longer faces a life sentence but could still be sentenced to 30 years or more, her lawyers said.
She was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of US officers and employees. She will be sentenced May 6.
How in the world did that skinny little woman rip that gun out of a big security guards hands?!!
Siddiqui’s family issued a statement that the verdict must be overturned on appeal.
Forget that; not here in 21st-century AmeriKa!
--more--"
I wonder if the AP article I picked up the night before elaborates anymore on this:
"Scientist convicted of trying to kill Americans" by Tom Hays, Associated Press Writer | February 3, 2010
FILE - In this July 17, 2008 file photo, accused al-Qaida associate Aafia Siddiqui is seen in the custody of Counter Terrorism Department of Ghazni province in Ghazni City, Afghanistan. The U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist has been convicted by a jury on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010 of charges she tried to kill Americans while she was detained in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/File)
That photograph is haunting, readers.
Look at her! How in the world could that sickly woman have done what they allege (with the gun not having been fired and no fingerprints)?
NEW YORK -- A U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist was convicted Wednesday of charges that she tried to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan in 2008, shouting with raised arm as jurors left the courtroom: "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America."
A jury deliberated three days in federal court in Manhattan before finding Aafia Siddiqui guilty in the third week of her attempted murder trial, which she often interrupted with rambling courtroom outbursts....
Before her arrest, U.S. authorities had called Siddiqui an al-Qaida sympathizer. She was never charged with terrorism....
The defendant -- a spindly neuroscience specialist who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University -- "is no shrinking violet," Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher La Vigne said in closing arguments.
"She does what she wants when she wants it," he said. "These charges are no joke. People almost died."
Testifying in her own defense, Siddiqui claimed she had been tortured while held in a "secret prison" before her detention. Charges that she attacked U.S. personnel who wanted to interrogate her were "crazy," she said. "It's just ridiculous."
In court, Siddiqui veiled her head and face with a white scarf and often sat slumped in her chair. She openly sparred with the judge and her own lawyers, insisted she could single-handedly bring peace to the Middle East and lashed out at witnesses in tirades that got her kicked out of the courtroom.
"I was never planning a bombing! You're lying!" she yelled while an Army captain testified.
In her closing argument, defense attorney Linda Moreno accused the prosecutors of trying to play on the jury's fears.
"They want to scare you into convicting Aafia Siddiqui," she said. "The defense trusts that you're much smarter than that."
Either naive or misplaced, I don't know which.
During the two-week trial, FBI agents and U.S. soldiers testified that when they went to interrogate Siddiqui at an Afghan police station, she snatched up an unattended assault rifle and shot at them while yelling, "Death to Americans." She was wounded by return fire but recovered and was brought to the United States to face trial.
A chief warrant officer, who testified in uniform but did not give his name, told jurors he had set down his M4 rifle after being told Siddiqui had been restrained. He testified he was shocked when she suddenly appeared from behind a curtain wielding his M4 rifle and yelling, "Allah akbar," Arabic for "God is great."
"It was pretty amazing she got that thing up and squared off," he said. "She was looking at me and aiming dead at me."
Hearing the rifle go off, the officer said he followed his military training and pulled his pistol. Siddiqui was wrestling with an interpreter when he shot her in the stomach.
"I operated within the rules of engagement to eliminate the threat," he said.
The defense told jurors there was no ballistic, fingerprint or other physical evidence proving the weapon was "touched by Dr. Siddiqui, let alone fired by her."
Siddiqui testified she was shot shortly after she poked her head around a curtain to see if there was a way she might slip out of the room where she was being held. She said she was desperate to escape because she feared being returned to a secret prison.
"I wanted to get out. ... I was afraid," she said....
That I believe.
--more--"
Fallout:
By AHMED QURAISHI
Thursday, 4 February 2010.
....
Dr. Aafia’s latest pictures show a dying woman ruthlessly tortured by Americans in US custody. Two of her three children, kidnapped with her from Pakistan’s streets, are missing....
It shames most Pakistanis to think that, while she was tortured and possibly raped by Americans in Afghanistan for years, the government of former President Pervez Musharraf did little to raise a voice for her and other Pakistanis who probably continue to rot in various US-run jails and dungeons in Afghanistan....
We understand the constraints of our politicians. Their money and properties are in London and New York. In fact, they count on US support to remain in power and not be removed by the military or by the people of Pakistan. That’s why instead of boycotting US diplomats in solidarity with Dr. Aafia, US Ambassador Anne Patterson and other US diplomats continue to receive generous treatment in Pakistani circles. Last week Pakistani websites circulated pictures of known Pakistani journalists dancing away at a private party at the US Embassy, in a country where US drones have killed close to 1,000 Pakistani women and children while ‘successfully’ targeting some 20 low-level terrorists.
Betrayed and abandoned by her own, Dr. Aafia was saved not by Pakistan but by Yvonne Ridly, a British journalist....
--MORE--"
Also see: Was Head Money Paid For Aafia Siddiqui?
"My Sister Aafia Siddiqui
by Dr. M.K.Sherwani
The anguish and pain on your face,
Have wreaked a havoc in my heart ;
My soul is now seething with rage,
As surging waves erode the shores.
Curse be on me, but more on those,
Who are called as Kings and Heads;
Whom you may call as your brothers,
Who are under your tormentors’ shoe.
But your luck will soon see the spring,
Have patience, Oh the woman of faith!
To read the rest go HERE
