US federal prosecutors have sought to have a North Carolina man forcibly medicated at a psychiatric hospital so he can face a charge that he sought to join al-Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria.
District Judge Terrence Boyle said during a brief court hearing that Pakistan-born Cary resident Basit Sheikh remains incompetent to help his defence despite months of treatment at a federal mental hospital near Raleigh. Sheikh, who was 29 when he was arrested in 2013, is charged with providing material support to a terrorist group.
The government wants Boyle's approval to order Sheikh's involuntary treatment for schizophrenia, federal prosecutor Jason Kellhofer said in a court filing. Psychologists at the federal medical center in Butner reported that Sheikh exhibited symptoms as early as 2012.
Prosecutors have to convince Boyle that important government interests are at stake and that involuntary medication will significantly further those interests.
The move is uncommon but not extraordinary, said George J Annas, a lawyer and chairman of the Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights Department at Boston University.
"That's what the judge is going to have to decide whether the government is making a credible case here that this guy really needs to be tried in a criminal case rather than just being kept in a mental institution for a period of time. They're not going to keep him locked up his whole life," he said.
Sheikh was an early target in an FBI effort to arrest Americans before they could join terrorist groups fighting in the Syrian conflict.
A Department of Homeland Security official said at a congressional hearing Wednesday that more than 180 US residents have tried to travel to Syria to fight, or have gone and come back.
Sheikh is charged with attempting to join the Syrian militant group Jabhat al-Nusra. He was arrested before boarding an airliner in Raleigh for a trip to Lebanon, the FBI said. He had written messages online expressing a desire to fight with the group, which is battling against Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops.
Sheikh's mother testified last year that he lived with his parents, likely suffered from anxiety and depression, needed psychiatric help, and spent all of his time on the Internet. He has no criminal record.
Sheikh grew up in the Seychelles, a 155-island country in the Indian Ocean, and moved to the US from Pakistan in 2005, he told Boyle last year. He is a permanent, lawful US resident but not a citizen, his attorney has said.
