US judge deems mentally ill man fit for trial in terror case
RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge on Thursday declared a mentally ill man fit for trial on a terrorism charge 10 months after the man started getting forcible injections with drugs that made him competent to defend himself in court.
But a defence attorney for the North Carolina man accused of trying to join al-Qaida-linked fighters in Syria said he will ask the U.S. government to drop a terrorism charge and allow the man to receive care from his family.
Basit Sheikh, 33, has schizophrenia. Dismissing a charge of providing material support to a terrorist group would allow him to be released to his family in suburban Raleigh, which could report to probation officers if he refused to take anti-psychotic medications, said Robert Waters, a federal public defender.
Sheikh has been held since late 2013, when he was arrested in an FBI sting.