The trial of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist who is charged with attempted murder, entered into new phase as the prosecution prepared to rest its case after its last witness completed his testimony on Tuesday. After a closing statement by the prosecution, Dr Siddiqui's defence team will start putting its witnesses on the stand on Wednesday and also show a two-hour video to the jurors in support of their case that she is not guilty of any wrongdoing.
Court officials said that the process would be completed by Friday and the jury would go into deliberations next week to prepare the verdict. "We are very much on schedule," US District Judge Richard Berman told the court after eight hours of proceedings, spread over two sessions, on Tuesday. In all the prosecution brought 18 witnesses to the stand since January 19, when the trial began.
Meanwhile, the defence team sent a letter to Judge Berman on Tuesday requesting him not have Aafia Siddiqui testify on her own behalf because of her "severe mental illness." Defence lawyer Linda Moreno said the defendant "refused to speak with us" and runs the "risk of prejudicing herself in the eyes of the jurors" if she takes the stand.
"We feel it is our duty under relevant ethical rules to take protective action to safeguard her interests," the letter read. The defence team's move came after judge Berman had rejected a prosecution request to ban Aafia coming to the trial, but citing different reasons-her repeated outbursts disrupt the proceedings. At that stage, the judge said that Aafia has a right to remain at her trial. He also said that every possible efforts have been made to ensure a fair trial, citing various steps. But Aafia retorted, "I respectfully would like to say that you are lying."
The defendant is accused of shooting at US Army and FBI agents in Afghanistan two years ago. No one was hit in that incident, but a US Army officer shot Aafia twice in the stomach. Her family spokesman, Tina Foster, also backed the move by three lawyers retained by the Pakistan government, saying they're also worried about Aafia's mental state.
"The Aafia whom we know and love is not the same rational and focused Aafia who we see in this courtroom," said her brother, Muhammad Siddiqui. The judge is expected to rule on whether she can testify before the defence begins presenting its case to the jury on Wednesday. Also on Tuesday, Fakir Asif Hussain, a senior diplomat at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, who has been monitoring the trial in New York, paid a courtesy call on Judge Berman.
During the proceedings, defence lawyer again brought out contradictions in the testimonies offered by prosecution witnesses during cross-examinations. An Afghan interpreter working with the US Army in Afghanistan was flown in all the way here to give his version of the 18
July 2008 shooting incident in Ghazni. While most witnesses said that Aafia Siddiqui had raised the slogan of Alla-O-Akbar" when allegedly brandishing a grabbed M-4 rile, interpreter Ahmad Jawid said she had shouted obscenities. Asked whether she had shouted "Death to America", as others had alleged, he said "No."
Jawid also said that the prosecution team met him three times before he was produced in the court on Tuesday, US Army Sergeant Wlliams, another witness, contradicted the testimony given was Specialist Renee Card, a medic, who had told the court a day earlier that Aafia Siddiqui had fired in the direction where she was sitting in the police headquarters room where the incident took place. At the end of the 6th day, family spokesperson Foster said that the prosecution case was full of contradictions and had failed to produce any hard evidence to implicate Aafia Siddiqui.
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