Abdi Trial In Holding Pattern

A Somali native accused of plotting to blow up a Columbus area mall is now in a legal holding pattern.

A judge has ordered a psychological exam for Nuradin Abdi, but it may take three months for the results to be released.

It appears the FBI started paying close attention to Abdi five years ago. That's when court documents accuse him of taking part in terrorist training, just four months after landing on US soil.

Abdi returned to the US nearly a year later, in March of 2000. The FBI says at the airport, he was picked up by Iyman Faris, an admitted al-Qaeda supporter who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for scouting the Brooklyn Bridge and other possible targets for terrorists.

There is no mention of Abdi, who lived quietly in Columbus for three years, until November of 2003, when federal agents charge him with lying on his application to travel.

The case climaxed in June, when a grand jury indicted Abdi on accusations that he conspired with Faris and others in a plot to blow up a Columbus area mall.

It was reported over a year ago that Abdi was ordered to get a psyche exam.

I know. Weird stuff in this case. Here is an old story that notes the psych exam ...

Mental Check For Mall Plot Suspect
Jun 16, 2004
A federal magistrate on Wednesday ordered a man charged with plotting to blow up a shopping mall to be transferred to a federal psychiatric facility to determine if he is mentally competent.
The evidence Magistrate Mark Abel used to determine why Nuradin Abdi should be sent to the facility has been sealed.
Federal investigators say Abdi, a 32-year-old Somali native, bragged that blowing up an Ohio shopping center was his goal.
But no specific mall was targeted. No explosives were in hand. And it is unclear that the alleged terrorist had the wherewithal to do it.
A four-count indictment, returned by a grand jury in Columbus, Ohio, charges that Abdi conspired with al Qaeda member Iyman Faris and others to detonate a bomb at the unidentified shopping mall after he obtained military-style training in Ethiopia. Faris is now imprisoned for never-acted-on plans to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge. ...
http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_168204923.html

I just found this one as well, not on the subject of the accused mental capacity or the charges against him, but describing what may be a procedural or evidentiary issue.

Faris, FWIW, is one (I think the ONLY) case being touted as showing the efficacy of the NSA terrorist surveillance program. The government more or less says that Abdi was fingered or ratted-out by Faris.

Friday, September 16, 2005
Kevin Mayhood - THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Government appeal of ruling on arrest likely to delay trial
The U.S. government will appeal this weeks decision by a federal judge that the arrest of a terrorism suspect was illegal, despite the fact that just about all the information the man gave during questioning can be used at trial.
U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbleys decision bans statements and evidence collected by FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who arrested Nuradin Abdi.
But that decision changed little in the case because Marbley ruled the government could use nearly identical information that Abdi provided to investigators two weeks later, after he had a lawyer at his side. ...
http://www.dispatch.com/.../20050916-B9-01.html

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