A Pakistani scientist who is the only woman accused of working with the al-Qaeda leadership has demanded that Jews should be excluded from the jury at her trial in New York.

Aafia Siddiqui called for jurors to undergo genetic testing in an outburst in federal court in Manhattan yesterday.

“If they have a Zionist or Israeli background . . . they are all mad at me,” Ms Siddiqui, an American-educated neuroscientist, said. “I have a feeling everyone here is them [sic] — subject to genetic testing. They should be excluded if you want to be fair,” she told the judge.

Prosecutors say that Ms Siddiqui, 37, who has a biology degree from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Brandeis University, fled the US in 2003 after marrying an al-Qaeda operative.

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As a biologist she should know that zionism and judaism are behavioral not genetic traits; being hebraic is genetic.