Terror suspect charged with trying to kill fellow inmate

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The terror suspect from Hillside who’s accused of trying to blow up a downtown Chicago bar in 2012 is now charged in a new case with trying to murder a fellow inmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Adel Daoud, 21, also was ordered to undergo a mental competency examination after an outburst in front of the judge presiding in the bombing case.

The latest charges against Daoud are three counts of assault — including one with intent to murder — and with possessing a weapon inside the federal jail. He was arraigned Tuesday morning in front of U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan.

At that hearing, prosecutors said Daoud had attempted to kill a fellow inmate with a makeshift weapon in May, six months after the man taunted him with a cartoon drawing of the Prophet Muhammad.

His attorney, Thomas Durkin, told U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan: “I don’t believe he’s competent to enter a plea. If a defendant is unable to enter a plea, the court must enter a plea of not guilty.”

Der-Yeghiayan did not object.

Earlier that morning, Daoud had appeared before a different federal judge at a status hearing in his other case — the terrorism charge.

There, Daoud told U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman that he needed to get something off his chest, then proceeded to explain to her how secret societies — namely the Illuminati and the Free Masons — are trying to destroy Islam.

“All the government are members of the Illuminati,” Adel Daoud, speaking in a calm voice, told Coleman. “The Illuminati seeks to destroy Islam and establish a new order.”

Before the judge gave him 60 seconds to wrap up his remarks, Daoud added: “Jurors are members of the Free Masons hired by the judge.”

Coleman asked how old Daoud was, to which he replied, “I’m 21. Dude, I need a cane!”

Coleman then ordered Daoud — who wore an orange jump suit under shaggy long hair and a beard — to undergo a mental competency examination later this month that will delay his trial date on charges he attempted to bomb a Loop bar in 2012. The trial, which had been scheduled for Oct. 5, now is set to begin in January.

Daoud flashed a peace sign to Coleman and was immediately escorted by U.S. marshals to Judge Der-Yeghiayan’s courtroom in the Dirksen Federal Building.

The feds accused Daoud in September 2012 of pushing the detonator on a fake car bomb he hoped would blow 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 later claimed Daoud tried to have that agent killed in the months after his arrest as he stewed in the Kankakee County Jail.

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.” He’s criticized investigators for focusing on Daoud ‘s “genuine love for his religion, however misinformed as it may have been.”

Daoud has been talkative in court before. At a June hearing, his frustration at being locked up for nearly three years boiled over. Though his lawyer urged him not to do it, he told the judge, “I’m charged with a lot of things that I don’t agree with.”

Then he said he’d be willing to plead guilty to “whatever the hell you want to charge me for.”

“You arrested me because I’m Muslim,” Daoud added at that hearing. He insisted there is a plan “to kill Muslims in this country.”

The judge had tried to stop him, telling Daoud: “You are not helping yourself.” But Daoud simply told her, “I’m not crazy.”

Contributing: Jon Seidel

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