Angling for an insanity defense? “Pakistani Woman Ejected From Trial Over Afghan Attack (Update2),” by Patricia Hurtado for Bloomberg, January 19 (thanks to Mackie):
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) — A Pakistani neuroscientist accused of trying to kill U.S. soldiers and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Afghanistan in 2008 was ejected from her federal court trial after two outbursts.
Aafia Siddiqui, 37, who was educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is accused of “picking up a rifle and attempting to murder U.S. citizens,” while being questioned at an Afghan police headquarters on July 18, 2008, Assistant Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jenna Dabbs told jurors today.
Siddiqui was carrying documents on bomb-making when Afghan authorities detained her, Dabbs said. The notes allegedly included references to a “mass casualty attack” and mentioned New York landmarks including Wall Street and the Empire State building.
“I never get a chance to speak!” Siddiqui later shouted in court, interrupting a U.S. Army captain’s testimony. “If you were held in a secret prison and your children were tortured. You have to give me credit! There was no list of targets against New York. I was never planning to bomb it! You’re lying!”
‘More Than 9/11’
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ordered that Siddiqui leave the courtroom and said she could watch the proceedings on closed-circuit television in an adjacent holding cell. He rejected a request from her lawyers to declare a mistrial.
Earlier, just before the jury entered the courtroom, Siddiqui turned to onlookers and shouted, “I have information about attacks, more than 9/11!”
“I want to help the president to end this group, to finish them,” she said. “They are a domestic, U.S. group, they are not Muslim. I’m not lying, I swear!”
Of course not!