US judge rejects motion by Aafia’s defence team for mistrial

NEW YORK: Lawyers for Aafia Siddiqui Monday protested their client’s removal from the Manhattan federal court at a time when the jury was present by tough tackling U.S. marshals, saying her constitutional rights to a fair trial and presumption of innocence have been violated.

In a motion asking Judge Richard Berman to declare mistrial, defence lawyer Linda Moreno said Ms. Siddiqui was made to look bad because of some rough handling by the marshals as they whisked her out.

Other grounds for a mistrial cited by Ms. Moreno were beefed up security measures outside the courtroom requiring visitors to the trial to provide personal identification and sign in. But the judge denied the motion towards the end of fifth day of the trial of Ms. Siddiqui, saying despite his warnings the defendant spoke out of turn, disrupting the proceedings and had to be ordered out.Ms. Siddiqui, 37, the Pakistani neuroscientist, is on trial for allegedly grabbing a rifle and shooting at U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan two years ago. No one was hit.

She denies the charge and has accused witnesses of lying. Ms. Moreno also said that the jurors could feel threatened by the extra security measures being enforced right before the jurors’ eyes. But the judge ruled that U.S. Marshals have denied that Ms. Siddiqui was roughly handled while they moved her out. He also said that additional security measures were necessary for such a “high profile” trial, citing some past instances when it was done. It was an eventful day as two jurors were also “excused” from the jury and replaced with alternates.

The judge ejected the jurors after they “interacted” with a spectator, who was also removed from the court. “They felt they would no longer be fair,” the judge said. Three more witnesses appeared before the court, including the Chief Warrant Officer of the US Army, who claims to have shot Ms. Siddiqui two times during a confrontation at the police headquarters in Ghazni city on 8 July 2008. The officer gave his rank, but not his name. Others who testified were: Specialist Renee Card, a medical worker, and FBI Special Agency Erik McGron, who will be cross-examined by defence lawyer on Tuesday.

The Chief Warrant Officer, his face scarred, limped into the courtroom with a cane, having been badly injured in a roadside bombing a year after the Ghazni incident. He began to weep at the stand as he described his injuries, saying, “Every bone - waist down to my feet - was broken.” “Three of my men were killed, along with one Afghan,” he said, wiping his tears with a tissue handed to him by Judge Berman. As he spoke, Ms. Siddiqui was heard saying, said, “I feel sorry for you. Don’t do take the blame for Captain Robert Snyder.

It will make America look bad in international court.” Capt. Snyder was the first witness at the trial who said Ms. Siddiqui suddenly appeared from behind a curtain dividing the room, brandishing the Chief Warrants Officer’s M-4 rifle. The judge ordered the defendant’s removal, saying, “It’s highly appropriate for her to be escorted out of the courtroom when she acts out.” He allowed her to return later.

The Chief Warrant officer testified Afghan authorities had told him Ms. Siddiqui was under their control, and was shocked when she suddenly appeared from behind the curtain wielding his M4 rifle and raising the slogan of “Allah-O-Akbar.” “It was pretty amazing she got that thing up and squared off,” he said. “She was looking at me and aiming dead at me.” Hearing the rifle go off, the officer claimed he followed his military training and pulled his pistol. Ms. Siddiqui was wrestling with an interpreter when he shot her in the stomach. At this stage, Ms. Siddiqui was heard saying, “I did not fire, I did not fire” as she was again removed by U.S. Marshals.

Last week FBI agents said the rifle allegedly fired by Ms. Siddiqui does not have her fingerprints, the casing of the two fired bullets were not found, nor their projectiles or fragments discovered from the wall of the room where the incident took place. In fact, a ballistic expert told the court Friday that he could not say with certainty whether the gun was ever fired.

During cross examination, Charles Swift, the lead lawyer, brought out some inconsistencies in the statements made by the Chief Warrant Officer. The lawyer pointed out that in his report submitted soon after the incident, the Chief Warrants officer had stated that the defendant was “lunging” towards his gun, contrasting with his statement on Monday that she was pointing the gun at him. The officer felt a little uncomfortable, but said his report was not step-by-step account of the event. Swift also drew the officer’s attention to another of his statement that Ms. Siddiqui’s gun was pointed upwards—another embarrassing moment.

There also contradictions in the statements made by Specialist Card, especially about where Capt. Snyder and the Chief Warrant officer were sitting. SAMAA
Source:samaa.tv/

U.S. policy confusion on Pakistan and India

What is the U.S. policy towards Pakistan and India, and in particular over how to deal with their rivalry over Afghanistan which complicates U.S. efforts to bring stability there? I’ve been trying to find an answer for weeks now amid a raft of contradictory signals and statements coming from different U.S. officials.

First we had the leaked report by General Stanley McChrystal in September suggesting the issue should be handled with caution given Pakistani sensitivities about a big rise in India’s presence in Afghanistan following the fall of the Pakistani-backed Taliban in 2001.

“Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment,” it said. “In addition the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter-measures in Afghanistan or India.”

Then we had a series of reports, most recently here, suggesting Washington might welcome a bigger role for India in Afghanistan – precisely the kind of development that would exacerbate tensions with Pakistan given the current sour mood between New Delhi and Islamabad.

U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke toured the region saying President Barack Obama’s administration would welcome better relations between India and Pakistan. But then he was followed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates who, if anything, actually worsened tensions between the two by saying that India might retaliate in the event of a another big attack like the Nov. 2008 assault on Mumbai.

Gates made a similar comment towards the end of last year, when he said al Qaeda and its Islamist allies might try to use an attack to provoke a conflict between Pakistan and India. The problem this time around was the context. Saying this in Washington is one thing; saying it in India is quite different. Pakistan had already been jumpy about Indian intentions after its army chief said the military should be prepared to fight a two-front war against both China and Pakistan. Indian analysts describe those remarks, made at a closed-door seminar, as an aspirational view of the need for military preparedness, rather than any kind of immediate threat; but they went down badly in Pakistan and therefore coloured the way Gates’ remarks were interpreted.

You have to wonder whether Gates had been properly briefed about the context when he talked about Indian losing patience in the event of another big attack, or indeed why someone with such long experience of the region would make what appeared to be a diplomatic gaffe shortly before flying into Pakistan to try to win support there. Did he, to borrow a word from the now U.S. Secretary of State, ”misspoke”?

Juan Cole, who has generally been supportive of the Obama administration, was unforgiving, writing on his blog Informed Comment that its policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan were in disarray:

“Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’s trip to Pakistan this weekend has in many ways been public relations disaster, and I think it is fair to say that he came away empty-handed with regard to his chief policy goals in Islamabad. Getting Pakistan right is key to President Barack Obama’s policy of escalating the Afghanistan War, and judging by Gates’s visit to Islamabad, Obama is in worse shape on the AfPak front than he is even in Massachusetts. Since he has bet so heavily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, this rocky road could be momentous for his presidency.”

Meanwhile Britain is hosting a conference on Afghanistan this week aiming to flesh out the timetable set by Obama for drawing down troops by 2011 and to convince regional players to cooperate rather than compete over a country which has long been a battleground for proxy wars. But as I wrote in this analysis, anything that might now be achieved in terms of easing tensions between India and Pakistan is likely to come too little, too late to deliver policy results in time for the 2011 deadline.

According to Steve Coll at the New America Foundation, who I quoted in the analysis, Washington’s need to achieve results in Afghanistan by 2011 is at odds with the longer-term clock followed by India and Pakistan. ”My sense is that the administration feels stymied by India’s continued insistence that it does not want any outside help and the frustratingly slow pace by which India and Pakistan are trying (to find a way back to negotiations),” he said. ”The U.S. doesn’t seem to be able to construct a breakthrough.”

The tensions between India and Pakistan complicate the current situation by undermining U.S. efforts to convince the Pakistan Army to turn on Afghan Taliban militants which it may eventually need to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan in the event of a U.S. withdrawal. Pakistan has also kept the bulk of its forces on the Indian border, limiting its capacity to mobilise troops to fight militants on the Afghan border. In the short to medium term, India and Pakistan are at odds over how far Taliban fighters should be brought into a process of reconciliation in Afghanistan. And in the long term, both could end up backing opposite sides in any renewed civil war between a weak government in Kabul and Taliban militants active in parts of the countryside. Then of course, both countries have nuclear weapons, so even without Afghanistan, it’s not a place where you would ever want tensions to escalate out of control.

So you would think that after a year in office, the U.S. administration would have a policy on how to deal with relations between India and Pakistan and their roles in Afghanistan. But I’m still looking for it.

Source:blogs.reuters.com/

Congress to probe private military contractors in Afghanistan

Washington (CNN) -- Congress is launching a broad-ranging investigation into possible waste, misuse and corruption tied to billions of taxpayer dollars used to support private military contractors in Afghanistan.

Among the questions being raised is whether money provided in a nearly $2.2 billion trucking contract in the war-torn country went to pay off local warlords and the Taliban.

The investigation comes as the Obama administration begins deploying another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The White House has requested more than $70 billion to fund the war in fiscal year 2010, according to a Senate subcommittee memo.

"Serious allegations have been brought to [Congress'] attention that private security providers for U.S. transportation contractors in Afghanistan are regularly paying local warlords and the Taliban for security," said Rep. John Tierney, D-Massachusetts, who chairs the House National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee.

"After a preliminary inquiry, it has been determined these reports warrant a full-scale ... investigation. If shown to be true, it would mean that the United States is unintentionally engaged in a vast protection racket and, as such, may be indirectly funding the very insurgents we are trying to fight."

Eight companies currently split the Afghan host nation trucking contract, which went into effect in May. The contract, according to Tierney's subcommittee, provides ground transportation in Afghanistan for more than 90 percent of supplies for U.S. troops, including food, fuel and ammunition.

Most supplies are shipped overland via Pakistan to Bagram Airfield, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. They are then distributed to hundreds of other smaller airfields and bases.

In the Senate, an oversight subcommittee headed by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, also is looking into how contractor money is being spent.

Federal auditors state that approximately $950 million in "questioned and unsupported costs" has been submitted by Pentagon contractors for work in Afghanistan, according to a report prepared for Congress. That amount represents 16 percent of the total contract dollars examined so far.

The U.S. government has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002, the report states.

There are currently 104,000 Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan -- a figure that could rise to 160,000 to support President Obama's planned troop increase, according to the report. Roughly 100,000 U.S. troops are slated to be in Afghanistan at the height of the coming surge.

Source:edition.cnn.com/