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A suspected al-Qaeda operative, who was reportedly apprehended two years ago in possession of instructions for making a radiological "dirty bomb," was found guilty by a federal jury yesterday of attempted murder, the New York Post reported (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2008 ).
Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pakistani-born neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui was charged after grabbing a loose firearm and attempting to shoot U.S. military and FBI personnel while she was being interrogated in Afghanistan in 2008. The 37-year-old was shot during an exchange of fire.
According to a previous report, an 2008 indictment claimed Siddiqui was first detained after she was found carrying notes on assembling chemical, biological and radiological weapons, as well as a list of possible New York targets and estimates of the number of people each weapon would kill (see GSN, Sept. 3, 2008).
Found guilty in a federal court in Manhattan on two counts of attempted murder and other charges, Siddiqui faces a possible sentence of life in prison.
She denied the charges, none of which involved terrorism. "I was never planning a bomb! You're lying!" Siddiqui said during the testimony of a U.S. Army officer, one of several outbursts during the trial that lasted two weeks.
One of Siddiqui's lawyers disputed the verdict.
"In my opinion, it is wrong. There was no forensic evidence and the witness testimony was divergent, to say the least...This was a verdict based on fear, not on fact," defense attorney Elaine Sharpe said (Golding/Lisi, New York Post, Feb. 3).