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Michelle Malkin: Courtroom Cirque du Jihad
Imagine this nightmare courtroom scenario: Unhinged Jew-bashing, open mockery of American soldiers, juror intimidation and coldly calculated exploitation of U.S. constitutional protections by a suspected al-Qaeda defendant. Well, there’s no need to wait for the Gitmo terror trial circuses. New York City is already getting a glimpse of the future.
Jihadi scientist Aafia Siddiqui is on trial right now in a federal Manhattan court for the attempted murder and assault of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province two years ago. She’s an accomplished Karachi-born scientist who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis University before disappearing in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Counterterrorism investigators connected Siddiqui and her estranged husband, anesthesiologist Mohammed Amjad Khan, to Saudi terror funders. The couple’s bank account showed repeated purchases of high-tech military equipment and apparel, including body armor, night-vision goggles and military manuals. Her second husband, fellow al-Qaeda suspect and 9/11 plot helper Ammar al-Baluchi, is one of five Gitmo detainees the Obama administration is planning to transfer to New York for trial.
Siddiqui was identified as an al-Qaeda operative, financier and fixer by no less than 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during U.S. interrogations. Al-Baluchi is KSM’s nephew. Mohammed reportedly enlisted Siddiqui in a Baltimore-based plot to bomb gas stations, fuel tanks and bridges, and to poison water reservoirs in the greater Washington, D.C., area. Siddiqui was taken into custody in Ghazni in July 2008 after attempting to shoot U.S. military interrogators and FBI agents.
Now, the savvy “Terror Mom” of three is pulling out all the stops to win a mistrial. Among her Cirque du Jihad antics:
» Demanding that jurors be genetically tested for a “Zionist or Israeli background” to ensure a fair and impartial jury of her Jew-hating peers.
» Ranting about 9/11 Israel conspiracies during voir dire.
» Screaming out loud during the testimony of Army Capt. Robert Snyder, who was in the room in Ghazni when Siddiqui allegedly grabbed an M-4 rifle and proclaimed, “Allahu Akbar!” and “I hate Americans! Death to America!” Before being ejected from the courtroom, Siddiqui shouted to Snyder, “You’re lying!” She also babbled about torture at a secret prison.
» Blurting out “I feel sorry for you” to the witness in front of the jury before being led out of the courtroom again.
Siddiqui’s defense team, funded in part by the Pakistani government, asserts that Lady al-Qaeda is so mentally ga-ga that she shouldn’t be allowed to take the witness stand. Bleeding-heart human-rights groups have dutifully rallied around Siddiqui. She’s Mumia Abu-Jamal in a burqa.
Indeed, her supporters have launched their own “Free Aafia” campaign. But two government-retained psychiatrists, working independently, determined last year that Siddiqui’s so-called symptoms of mental illness were attributed to “malingering” and “manipulation.” The judge in the case concluded that she is competent and understands full well the charges against her.
The Crazy Jihadi tactic is in perfect sync with the al-Qaeda training manual advising its operatives to claim victimhood status if arrested and put on trial. This act is also in keeping with a long tradition of terror defendants invoking the insanity card — from “20th hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui (whose lawyers chalked up his mass-murdering ambitions to a traumatic childhood) to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan (whose defense will undoubtedly play up his lonely bachelorhood).
To make matters worse, the New York Post reported last week that an “unidentified man in a white headdress” mouthed an obscenity at the Siddiqui trial and cocked his finger like a gun at two jurors. The jurors were let go; it remains unclear whether the thug in white headdress will be charged and what relation, if any, he has to Siddiqui.
Would you answer a jury summons knowing you could end up sitting in front of a jihadi sympathizer on the loose who is mentally painting a target on your forehead? And would you trust the White House ringmasters and Justice Department terror-coddlers to protect you from harm?
These suspects belong in controlled military tribunals, not federal courtrooms that are being turned into al-Qaeda P.R. platforms. The O.J. Simpson spectacle of a smirking murder suspect, preening defense attorneys, a showboating judge and the judicial process run amok on cable TV 24/7 was bad enough. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial, which gave the Osama bin Laden network a multimillion-dollar tax-subsidized legal team, free translation services, personal dry-cleaning services, race-baiting defense witnesses and access to information that was allegedly used by jihadists to evade surveillance, was even worse.
The specter of 10, 15, 20 Siddiqui-style courtroom carnivals — at a cost of at least $1 billion to taxpayers — threatens to throw our civilian court system into complete chaos. America can’t afford to clown around with national security.
— Michelle Malkin is author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild. Click here for more information. She can be contacted at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
» wrote on 01.31.10 @ 09:13 PM
What are they thinking?
» wrote on 02.01.10 @ 08:13 AM
Give trial judges a little more credit. They are not dummies, and typically they know how to control courtroom proceedings. And what were the geniuses in the White House and CIA thinking when they funded and sponsored Osama Bin Laden and his network in Afghanistan’s war against the USSR? Better than even chance that any training manuals that al-Quaeda operatives use were written in Langley, VA.
» wrote on 02.01.10 @ 09:37 AM
While the case is on trial let us not say any thing about the accused or the witnesses at this moment, have faith in judges let the court decide. She is innocent unless proven guilty.
Michelle should have investigated more before writing “Courtroom Cirque du Jihad”. Aafia is just one of the victims of Pakistani Government + Uncle Sam, how many innocent people were picked up and sold to USA by Pak Afghan officials after Afghanistan invasion. Nothing was proven against them except few still awaiting trials.
Have faith in American Justice and wait for the decision.
» wrote on 02.01.10 @ 09:50 AM
Holder, et al, were NOT thinking. And it’s this kind of NOT THINKING that’s heading us toward a s*** storm. Scott Brown was right, we should use our tax dollars to support our servicemen, not terrorist defense lawyers.
Lawyers in Washington = fools in high places!
» wrote on 02.01.10 @ 11:50 AM
Why should we show the world that democracy, justice and the rule of law work? We have shown the world that justice is only meted out to the poor who can’t afford legal representation and protection guaranteed by the Constitution. The rich and powerful get wrist slaps and at most a short sentence to a country club jail to play tennis and write their memoirs.
Dictators know all about the danger of democracy, justice and an informed public.
As we continue to abandon the rule of law in favor of the rich and powerful, we mock the principles that our founding fathers gave us, but feared that we could not keep.
Why even give criminals and terrorists a fair trial? We can just disappear them at Gitmo or in some other country, guilty or not.
If the trial in N.Y. was a Cheney-Bush-Guillani idea it would just fine.
» wrote on 02.01.10 @ 12:26 PM
It finally occurred to me why I find Malkin so annoying to read. Nothing can ever meet her incredibly high standards of how America should function. Of course, during the entire Bush-Cheney reign (and I use that word deliberately) she had very few complaints. How could she - they were her dream of anti-government, anti-tax libertarian ideals come to life. Now, naturally, Malkin is beside herself at how horribly run government is today. (Funny how the folks who hated government and ran it into the ground while dismanteling the middle class and the economy made her all goose-bumpy). The real problem with people of Malkin’s ilk is that when all is sadi and done, their continual whining and second-guessing ends up seeming very un-patriotic and frankly, un-American. Can’t the country you claim to love do ANYTHING right, dear Michelle?
» wrote on 02.01.10 @ 05:20 PM
Ronny, go read Greek history. The inventors of democracy showed that it works well if applied to CITIZENS not EVERYONE and their mother’s uncle. Equal treatment under the law is the hall mark of democracy but it is flawed as most systems are, so what do you favor, what system out there is better than ours and why on earth do you suppose we would not extend our system to battle field combatants?
Obama and his lobbyist AG chose to do this to appease far left one-worlders who believe the world should be run by a UN government (aka Europe). To these people sovereign borders are an affront to freedom. A high ideal to be sure, but this decision, like so many of Obama’s, meets reality head on. You and your liberal friends can continue to bury your reason and logic behind Bush Derangement Syndrome, but all that will do is get us all killed in the end.
» wrote on 02.01.10 @ 08:20 PM
The millions of liberal bottom feeder attorenys would love this case, for the publicity—The hell with our country—GITMO was set up for this????
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