By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Defense attorneys for Seattle Jewish Federation shooter Naveed Haq began their case two weeks ago by putting their client’s tearful mother, his estranged younger brother, and his compassionate father on the witness stand.
Each told how life with Haq was unpredictable and painful, and, in the days before the shooting, just plain frightening.
“Naveed used to come and go, and he was not sleeping at all,” Nahida Haq told the court about her son’s demeanor on the Wednesday before he drove to Seattle to attack the Federation two days later.
“He had a blank face and no expression,” she cried. “He was laughing a hollow laugh and his body was all changed. It didn’t look like Naveed anymore.”
Medical experts in the case said Haq was on six different prescription drugs for Bipolar 1 Disorder,a diagnosis which for Haq included psychotic features, on the day he is alleged to have committed the crimes. They included Lamictal, Depakote, Resperitol, Wellbutrin, Lithium, and Synthroid.
Defense attorneys hope to convince a King County jury that a change in one of Haq’s antipsychotic medications, from Lithium to Effexor, induced side effects that made him act out in an impulsive and deadly way on that summer afternoon in July, 2006.
On cross-examination, Deputy Prosecutor Erin Ehlert gently challenged the mother, a 54-year-old Pakistani woman, suggesting that she might not have known her son as well as she thought she did.
After all, rebutted Ehlert, in his apartment, unknown to his mother, he had kept two automatic handguns, one shotgun with an attached shoulder strap, a large knife, and numerous boxes of ammunition that he had purchased during the 12 days before the shootings, along with a laptop computer that he used to plan his trip to Seattle, and to get directions to the Federation building.
Earlier in the trial, prosecutors had called a computer forensics expert who had retrieved all of Haq’s Internet searches from the computer in his apartment and the one he used in his parent’s home, where he had his own room.
He showed the court hundreds of Web sites Haq had visited in the days before the shootings that were related to the Jewish people, and their role in the United States government, politics, foreign policy, and in the Middle East.
Prosecutors also cited quotes from documents Haq had written called kutbahs, or Islamic sermons, that compared Jewish power around the world to the lack of power that Muslims seemed to have.
“He was always struggling and looking for the right religion,” Haq’s father, Mian Haq, told the court. “He hated al-Qaida and the Taliban and said they wanted to take us back 1,400 years. He used to admire Jews.”
After each family member described Haq’s failure to keep jobs or make friends, attorneys switched focus to the core of their case — week-by-week treatment records from seven of his treating psychiatrists over the last 10 years.
There was no dispute from defense attorneys that the 32-year-old Muslim-American suffered from a decade-long battle with diagnosed Bipolar 1 Disorder, and that later an additional diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder was made, a diagnosis that includes features of hallucinations, delusions, and grandiosity, as well as the belief that one can broadcast their thoughts across the city and “pick up” the thoughts of others.
But the defense must prove that Haq was insane, which, according to Washington law, means that he could not form the intent to commit the crime, and that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.
Their central medical expert, Dr. James Missett, a Yale-trained addiction and forensic psychiatrist who routinely testifies for both defense and prosecution teams, told the court that Haq was and is severely mentally ill.
He testified that Haq was exhibiting both manic or aggressive behaviors and deep depression the day he shot the six women.
On Thursday, one day before the crime, Haq had been scheduled to appear in an Eastern Washington courtroom to be arraigned for a lewdness charge. The case was postponed late that week.
Missett also went on the record to say that Haq’s Bipolar I symptoms of anger and sadness along with the psychotic features of audio and visual hallucinations, in combination with the wrong psychotropic drugs, drove him over the edge.
“My opinion is that Mr. Haq was insane, legally, at the time of the incident at the Jewish Federation,” Missett testified. “He is a seriously disturbed individual who got markedly worse in the beginning of 2005.”
Haq’s first psychotic episode was in 1998 at the age of 23 — three years after he diagnosed himself as having Bipolar Disorder and first sought treatment while pursuing his engineering degree at the prestigious Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
When asked whether Haq was able to distinguish between right and wrong eight years later at the time of the shootings, Missett told defense attorney C. Wesley Richards: “My opinion is he was not able to perceive the nature and quality of his acts.”
Dr. Philip Barnard, a psychiatrist who evaluated Haq for the Department of Social and Health Services in 2005, to determine if he was eligible for disability benefits, testified that he used several state-of-the-art psychological exams to evaluate Haq, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI-2.
“The test showed a chronic psychotic process with high levels of schizophrenia, mania, and paranoia,” said Barnard. “It also showed that he was markedly impaired for decisions and judgment.”
“But he was not mentally retarded, and there was no evidence he was brain-damaged?” argued Prosecutor Donald Raz during his cross-examination of Barnard.
“Yes,” Barnard replied to both questions. “He knows who he is, where he is, and why he’s there.”
The drug at issue in this case is Effexor, a drug unapproved for the treatment of Bipolar Disorder and known to have homicidal side effects in a small number of people, according to testimony from defense witness Dr. Robert Julien, an M.D. with a doctorate in Pharmacology.
“The incidence [of homicide] is real but rare, estimated at one-half of one percent,” said Julien.
Julien had reviewed Haq’s medications and case records from his treating psychiatrists from July 2005 through July 2006 just three days before the crimes at the Seattle Federation. Julien also interviewed Haq after the crime.
His doctors reported that Haq was in a “generally good mood” after stopping his Lithium and that he wanted to make more friends, was developing hobbies, and was looking for work.
“Haq denied any major side effects, took a higher dose of Effexor, and had no problems,” Julien testified.
On July 25, 2006, three days before the Federation shootings, Julien reported that his client showed “improved communication” and was feeling good.
However, Julien added, he also said Haq had worry and stress related to the war in Lebanon and Hezbollah.
The defense will continue to question its medical experts and hopes to conclude its case by the third week in May.