Judge Predicts Terrorism Suspect May Not See Trial Until 2018
CHICAGO (CBS) -- With authorities making little progress in their attempt to restore a terrorism suspect's mental competency, a federal judge predicted Wednesday he may not go on trial until 2018.
That would be more than five years after the FBI arrested Adel Daoud, then 18, for pushing the detonator on a fake car bomb he placed near a downtown Chicago bar. The inert explosive had been given to him by an undercover federal agent.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman found Daoud not mentally fit in August. He was eventually sent to a federal treatment facility in Springfield, Missouri. Still, the judge didn't cancel Daoud's Feb. 7 trial until Wednesday, when prosecutors told her Daoud has made little progress and was refusing to take medication.
Thomas Anthony Durkin, Daoud's lawyer, also complained that Daoud has been held in segregation at the facility, which he said could be compounding the problem.
"In many ways, we have the tail chasing the dog here," Durkin said.
Daoud, of Hillside, said a prayer before he allegedly pushed the detonator on the fake car bomb in September 2012. While in jail, Daoud allegedly tried to plot the murder of the undercover agent who set him up. He also allegedly assaulted a fellow inmate last year over a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
A two-day competency hearing last summer revealed predictions by Daoud that the government will execute him by beheading, and that he blames his cellmate's suicide on Coleman. Daoud has also rambled on repeatedly about reptilian overlords, the Illuminati and Free Masons.
Not only did the judge agree to cancel Daoud's trial Wednesday, she said there was no point in setting a new trial date. She simply warned the lawyers that "my best guess is that we're looking at 2018." The next status hearing in the case is set for February.
"See you next year," Coleman told them.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2016. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)