Zeenews Bureau
New York: A Pakistani scientist, accused of shooting at FBI agents and having ties to al Qaeda, has demanded that Jews should be excluded from the jury at her trial in New York.
On the second day of jury selection at her attempted murder trial in federal court in Manhattan, Aafia Siddiqui demanded genetic testing for jurors. “If they have a Zionist or Israeli background . . . they are all mad at me,” Siddiqui told the judge.
“I have a feeling everyone here is them [sic] — subject to genetic testing. They should be excluded if you want to be fair,” she said.
She told the judge that she had nothing to do with the attacks and suggested Israel was behind them, but insisted she's not an anti-Semite.
Authorities have linked the 37-year-old Siddiqui to al Qaeda. She's not facing terrorism charges.
She's accused of grabbing a US Army officer's rifle during an interrogation following her capture in Afghanistan in July 2008 and exchanging gunfire with US soldiers and FBI agents.
As per the prosecutors, the 37-year-old Siddiqui fled the US in 2003 after tying the knot with an al Qaeda operative.
Siddiqui has a biology degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Brandeis University.
First Published: Friday, January 15, 2010, 11:34