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USA: Aafia’s trial to move into final stage Monday
01-02-2010
NEW YORK, (APP): The trial of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani nneuroscientist who is charged with shooting at her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan, will move into the final stage Monday, after both the prosecution and defence deliver their closing arguments. The 16-member jury will go into deliberations in an effort to reach its verdict as soon as the winding up statements are delivered. According to experts, the verdict could come early next week.
Ms. Siddiqui’s Siddue trial began in the U.S. District Court on January 19. Ms. Siddiqui is accused of grabbing a M-4 rifle and firing at U.S. soldiers and FBI agents who had gone to a police station in Ghazni, a day after her arrest in that Afghan city in July 2008. No one was hit in the incident, but Ms. Siddqui was shot in the stomach by a US soldier.
On Friday, before the court recesses for the weekend, a prosecution attempt to undercut Mrs. Siddiqui’s moving testimony denying the attempted murder and assault charges failed as the exercise left two of three government witnesses flustered under some sharp cross-examination by defence lawyers.
The family’s spokesman, attorney Tina Foster of the International Justice Network, has said she is hopeful of a positive outcome. At the same time, she said that regardless of how weak the prosecution’s case, which currently looks like a flea circus, it all comes down to whether an American jury can acquit a woman with a scarf covering her face.
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