The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio- Mental health experts who examined a Somali man accused of plotting to bomb a shopping mall have concluded he was faking when he became a wild-eyed defendant who tapped his head on a table, mumbled and giggled in court.
Documents made public last week from two analysts at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota, said Nuradin Abdi was pretending to be mentally ill, The Columbus Dispatch newspaper reported Tuesday.
Abdi told psychiatrists that Hillary Rodham Clinton and Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, would represent him in his terrorism trial.
He sometimes refused to shower, or he showered with his clothes on. Although a devout Muslim, he tore up a copy of the Quran and shoved the pieces into a toilet.
“We believe such behaviors were calculated attempts to appear severely mentally ill,” forensic psychologist Andrew Simcox and staff psychiatrist Daniel Shine Jr. said in their report.
However, another psychiatrist requested by Abdi’s defense attorney because the first report came from a federal agency said it’s possible that Abdi has a “legitimate psychosis.”
Abdi, 33, has pleaded innocent to charges of conspiring to aid terrorists and lying to gain political asylum in the United States as a refugee. His trial is scheduled for Sept. 26.
Abdi’s attorneys have sought to bar statements he made to authorities in which he admitted to falsifying immigration documents and planning to blow up a Columbus-area shopping mall.
U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley has said he will rule before the trial but indicated he would not discount the statements Abdi made with a lawyer at his side.
Prosecutors accuse Abdi of obtaining travel documents in 1999 by telling officials he planned to visit Germany and Saudi Arabia when he actually went to a military-style training camp for terrorists in Ethiopia.
Federal agents arrested Abdi on Nov. 28, 2003, after convicted al-Qaida operative Iyman Faris told them Abdi suggested shooting up a shopping mall.
Marbley last month criticized federal agents for arresting Abdi without a warrant.
Agents testified they were unable to get a warrant for the arrest because information leading them to have probable cause was classified and they wanted to act before the holiday shopping season.
Abdi’s attorney, Mahir T. Sherif, argued Abdi’s arrest was illegal and he was coerced and mistreated.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com