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Summary
A US trained Pakistani neuroscientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui charged with shooting at her US interrogators in Afghanistan yelled at jurors during the first day of her trial in New York on, saying she had been held in a secret prison.Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, 37, had to be led out of the courtroom after disrupting the testimony of one of the witnesses. She is charged with grabbing a US warrant officer's rifle while she was detained for questioning in July 2008 in Afghanistan's Ghazni province and firing it at FBI agents and military personnel. None of them were injured but Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who the US government has accused of links with Al-Qaeda, was shot. She is charged with attempted murder, assault and other crimes and faces life in prison if convicted. The US government has previously linked her to Al-Qaeda but the charges against her do not mention the group and prosecutors did not mention terrorism or Al-Qaeda during opening statements. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who is charged only with the shooting incident, wore a white veil and sat slumped with her head in her arms throughout most of the proceeding in federal court. She interrupted and suggested that she had been given magazines to copy to write the notes. Since I will never get a chance to speak, if you were in a secret prison, where children were tortured, she yelled before being led from the courtroom. This is no list of targets against New York. I was never planning to bomb it, she exclaimed. Supporters of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui picketed outside the courthouse before the trial started, protesting the neuroscientist's treatment while in custody. The protestors then filed into the courtroom to hear the opening arguments. The trial is expected to last several weeks.
