[jinnamys]

NEW YORK — An Army interpreter recounted Wednesday how he subdued a U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist prosecutors say tried to kill Americans during a chaotic shootout in an Afghan police station in the summer of 2008.

Ahmad Gul told a jury in federal court in Manhattan that he heard someone shout, “She got the gun!” before turning to see Aafit Siddiqui pointing an assault rifle at U.S. soldiers and FBI agents in a tiny office.

“I right away lunged toward her and I pushed her toward the wall ... and I pushed the [gun barrel] toward the ceiling,” he said on the second day of Siddiqui’s attempted murder trial.

Authorities allege Siddiqui, 37, is an al-Qaida supporter who was detained on July 18, 2008, after being caught carrying handwritten notes referencing a “mass casualty attack” and listing the Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty and other New York City landmarks. They say before she could be interrogated, she managed to grab an M4 rifle set down by a chief warrant officer and open fire.

As Gul said Siddiqui struggled, she fired the weapon twice, he said. The chief warrant officer pulled a pistol and shot her in the stomach.

“When she got shot ... she jerked and I snatched the gun away from her,” Gul said.

Siddiqui, a specialist in neuroscience who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University, has insisted in courtroom rants that she’s innocent. She also has refused to work with her defense attorneys, including some paid for by the Pakistani government.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman warned her Wednesday that no more outbursts would be tolerated.

“I’m just going to be quiet, but it doesn’t mean I agree,” she said before draping herself across the defense table.

FBI agent John Jefferson testified Wednesday that he heard her yelling, “I’m going to kill all you Americans” after she was shot. He said he surprised it was in “perfect English.”

Jurors have heard another eyewitness, Army Capt. Robert Snyder, criticize the unnamed chief warrant officer for not securing his weapon.

The officer “felt he had saved the day,” the captain said. “He had returned fire, so to speak. ... I felt that some of the actions or inactions he took contributed to the situation.”

As for the interpreter, “I expressed my overwhelming gratitude for what he did,” he said.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20..._trial_012010/