Imagine this nightmare courtroom scenario: Un hinged Jew-bashing, open mockery of American soldiers, juror intimidation and coldly calculated exploitation of US 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 Manhattan federal court for the attempted murder and assault of US military personnel in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province two years ago.
She’s an accomplished Karachi, Pakistan-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 Dr. Mohammed Amjad Khan, to Saudi terror funders.
Siddiqui was identified as an al Qaeda operative, financier and fixer by no less than 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed during US interrogations.
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 area.
Siddiqui was taken into custody in Ghazni in July 2008 after attempting to shoot US 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 US Army Capt. Robert Snyder, who was in the room in Ghazni when Siddiqui allegedly grabbed an M-4 rifle and proclaimed, “I hate Americans! Death to America!”
Siddiqui’s defense team, funded in part by the Pakistani government, asserts that Lady al Qaeda is so mentally ga-ga that she should not have been allowed to take the witness stand.
The Crazy Jihadi tactic is in perfect sync with the al Qaeda training manual advising its operatives to claim victimhood status if on trial.
To make matters worse, the New York Post reported this 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 Osama bin Laden’s network a multimillion-dollar legal team, free translation 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.
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