'Lady Al Qaeda' cries foul: Accused terrorist Aafia Siddiqui says toss Jews from jury pool
BY Alison Gendar
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, January 14th 2010, 4:00 AM

Jury selection in the "Lady Al Qaeda" trial got off to a bizarre start Wednesday with the accused terrorist telling jurors she was "boycotting" - and demanding Jews be excluded from the panel.

"If they have a Zionist or Israeli background...they are all mad at me," said Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-trained neuroscientist charged with attempted murder.

"I have a feeling everyone here is them - subject to genetic testing....They should be excluded if you want to be fair," she told Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman.

Prospective jurors weren't present for that outburst, but they were in the courtroom to hear her say, "I'm boycotting the trial...there are too many injustices."

At another point, Siddiqui repeatedly refused to talk to her own lawyers, saying she didn't trust them.

"I don't trust you either," she told Berman.

She even tried to toss a handwritten note to prosecutors requesting time each day to pray. Berman ruled she could leave the courtroom at 3:30 p.m. for 15minutes of prayer.

Siddiqui, 37, is accused of picking up an M-4 Army rifle and firing two rounds at a team of Americans who tried to question her in Afghanistan on July 18, 2008.

Prosecutors argue she screamed, "Allah Akbar" and vowed to kill Americans before she was wrestled to the ground. She allegedly had two pounds of poisonous sodium cyanide and hundreds of pages of notes and documents on how to build chemical and biological weapons.

The terror guides featured targets including the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, prosecutors said.

Berman ruled the jury can hear about the target list and other handwritten notes but tossed as evidence the chemicals and mass-produced documents from "how-to" terror manuals.

Prosecutors also are barred from bringing up Siddiqui's alleged ties or sympathies with Al Qaeda because they would create a bias.

agendar@nydailynews.com



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