Trial date set for man accused of wanting to set off car bomb

A federal judge has set a February trial date for a Hillside terror suspect arrested nearly four years ago for trying to blow up a downtown Chicago bar.

Adel Daoud, 22, was previously set to go to trial last January. But his lawyers renewed concerns about Daoud’s mental competency. They also asked on Wednesday for a hearing to challenge a recent finding that Daoud not only is competent to stand trial, but also was sane when he allegedly pushed the detonator on a fake car bomb given to him by an undercover federal agent.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman scheduled that hearing for Aug. 18. She also set Daoud’s trial for Feb. 7, telling lawyers it’s “going to be the last one I set.”

Daoud was evaluated at a federal facility in Springfield, Mo.

Last year, Daoud wrote a letter to Coleman in which he called Americans “Islamophobic” and suggested his jury should be made up of 12 people from foreign countries.

“I do not think that even if you were to pick 12 random Americans that would be fair,” Daoud wrote.

He suggested an acquaintance of his, as well as a government lawyer, should travel overseas to pick his jury. He wrote that he “would agree to any of the following countries,” and listed Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Mexico.

Daoud also allegedly tried to kill a fellow inmate in May over a cartoon drawing of the Prophet Muhammad. The feds charged him in August with three counts of assault — including one with intent to murder — and with possessing a weapon inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Daoud also suggested Coleman would be moved if she read the Quran.

“I think you are smart and if you study the Quran and the life of Prophet Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, if God wills, you will become Muslim; like the Queen of Sheba, in Surah 27, who became Muslim at the hands of King Soloman [sic], may peace be upon him,” Daoud wrote.

That letter violated a previous request by Coleman, who had told Daoud to communicate with her only through his lawyer. Because Daoud contends Americans are mostly “brainwashed,” and his case is therefore, “quite literally me vs. The United States of America.”