New York—An FBI expert told a federal court on Wednesday that he found no fingerprints on the rifle that Aafia Siddiqui allegedly grabbed to fire at US interrogators in Afghanistan, but asserted that firearms in many cases do not retain them.

T. J. Fife, the FBI fingerprint expert who was put on the stand by the prosecution on the second day of Ms. Siddiqui’s trial, said he used all techniques, including the top-of-the-line laser technology to search for evidence, but found nothing on the M-4 rifle, which was produced in the court. “There were no fingerprints on the rifle, but it is difficult to obtain them from firearms,” he added. Fife was the last of the five prosecution witnesses who testified on Wednesday. He will be cross-examined by defence lawyers on Thursday.

Throughout Wednesday’s proceedings, the lawyers for the prosecution and defence worked to focus the jurors’ attention on their stands concerning the July 18, 2008, incident in Ghazni, Afghanistan. In his opening statement on Tuesday, Charles Swift, the defence lawyer, had said Ms. Siddiqui didn’t fire any weapon that day. Authorities were never able to find any gunpowder residue on Ms. Siddiqui or any ballistics evidence showing the rifle had been fired or that she had used it, Swift said.

The prosecution brought in the FBI fingerprint expert in an obvious attempt to take the edge off Swift’s statement because the government witness said that firearms usually do not record the impressions. The reason he gave was that firearms have rough surface that do not retain fingerprints, with heat, humidity and sweat also contributing to erasing them.

Meanwhile,a former Afghani interpreter with US Special Forces on Wednesday appeared to contradict the version of the Ghazni shooting incident given by a US Army captain on Tuesday about the position of Ms. Siddiqui while allegedly aiming the rifle. While interpreter Ahmad Gul told the court that the Pakistani neuroscientist was standing with the gun in her hand, Capt. Robert Snyder had said that she was in kneeling position. Gul, who now holds a Green Card, lives in the United States. Responding to Defence lawyer Linda Moreno’s question, he said that the U.S. government had sponsored him in October 2008 and he got the permanent resident status in 2009.

He said he was paid all expences here until he got a job in a clothing store. Gul also had trouble in remembering what he had said in a report to the FBI five days after the incident. He had then stated that his chief warrant officer looked behind a curtain of the room in a police station where Ms. Siddiqui was supposed to be sitting. Responding to the defence attorney’s queries, Gul said his boss never look behind the curtain.

SOURCE : Pakobserver.net

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