Bomb Plot Suspect Found Competent To Stand Trial; Lawyers May Challenge
CHICAGO (STMW) -- A suburban man accused of trying to blow up a downtown Chicago bar three years ago has been found competent to stand trial, his lawyer said.
But Thomas Anthony Durkin, a lawyer for 21-year-old Adel Daoud of Hillside, told a judge Monday he might challenge that finding ahead of Daoud's trial Jan. 5.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ordered a psychological examination for Daoud this summer after Daoud allegedly tried to murder a fellow inmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center over a cartoon drawing of the Prophet Muhammad. Coleman listened to two outbursts from Daoud in recent months about secret societies like the Illuminati and the Free Masons.
"When somebody starts talking about the court and prosecutor and their own lawyer as being influenced by the Illuminati, one might think that there's an issue," Durkin said after a hearing Monday. "And I don't know that that's sufficiently addressed in the report."
Durkin also told the judge an early version of the doctor's report contained a smiley face on one page beside the words, "you are awesome to be trying to write this whole report!!" Durkin said the sentence disappeared in a revised version of the document, raising questions about its author. He said he might ask for a hearing over the report that "goes beyond the bounds."
The feds accused Daoud in September 2012 of pushing the detonator on a fake car bomb in hopes of blowing up a downtown Chicago bar. The fake explosive had allegedly been given to him by an undercover federal agent at the end of a months-long investigation. Authorities would also later claim Daoud tried to have that agent killed in the months after his arrest as he stewed in the Kankakee County Jail.
Daoud also allegedly tried to kill a fellow inmate in May, and the feds charged him in August with three counts of assault — including one with intent to murder — and with possessing a weapon inside the federal jail. Daoud and his lawyers are expected to appear in court again Tuesday to address those charges.
Durkin has previously referred to Daoud as an "immature, impressionable and naive teenager," and he's said the investigation that snared him involved repeated meetings between an "isolated adolescent and a sophisticated adult team of undercover agents."
Durkin and Daoud's father, Ahmed Daoud, also complained Monday that Daoud is being held in solitary confinement. Durkin said Daoud's family has had trouble visiting him via video conference, and he said the "draconian" measure could be contributing to Daoud's theories about the Illuminati.
"He's suffered too much," Ahmed Daoud said after court Monday.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2015. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)