WASHINGTON, February 6: A US court has rejected a defence motion requesting a new trial for Mir Aimal Kasi (33), the Pakistani national, under sentence of death in the much-publicised CIA shooting spree.The incident left two CIA officers dead in front of their headquarters building and three others wounded.Fairfax county judge J Howe Brown also rejected two other motions, one relating to the jury deliberations and another to Kasi's ``unlawful'' capture in Pakistan. The judge ruled that there is no evidence that recently disclosed information about the medical condition of a key prosecution witness, Judy Becker-Darling, had any effect on her testimony.
Lawyers for Kasi moved for a new trial after discovering through a pre-sentencing report that Judy Becker-Darling, who saw her husband killed, was under medical treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder for five years after the January 25, 1993 killings.
The judge said: ``to think the defence (could have) had Judy Becker-Darling on the stand and couldhave brought all this out in a way that would help their client stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point. Even if you took Judy Becker-Darling out of this case, (Kasi) still suffers depravity of mind.''
Becker-Darling was the only witness to testify about the sequence of events that prosecutors said spoke to the vileness of Kasi's crime. The attorneys said they wanted to present medical testimony that such medicine would affect her ability to recall what happened.
Senior assistant public defender Crystal A Meleen argued that the defence had a right to investigate Becker-Darling's medical condition and that they had asked before the trial for any evidence showing that witnesses suffered from conditions that could cast doubt on their testimony.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
