Hasan alert in first hospital meeting with lawyer

Accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan was coherent during his first meeting with his defence lawyer in a hospital intensive care unit.

Civilian lawyer John Galligan told the CBS 'Early Show' that Hasan was alert but began to fade toward the end of their hour-long session on Thursday.

Hasan was charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the attack at the sprawling Texas post that also left 29 people injured.

The Army psychiatrist was shot several times and remains in hospital. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Mr Galligan said Hasan’s medical condition remains “extremely serious”. But he says Hasan was alert enough to know he was speaking with his lawyer.

“He understands who I am. We can talk .... But I was only there for an hour and towards the end of the one-hour session, I could tell I was kind of pushing him in terms of my ability to keep him fresh and alert in a discussion with me,” Mr Galligan said.

President Barack Obama has ordered a review to determine if warning signs were mishandled of contact between Hasan and a radical Islamic cleric who encouraged Muslims to kill US troops in Iraq.

Mr Obama said he wanted all intelligence related to Hasan preserved and reviewed to determine whether it was properly shared and acted upon within the government. The first results are due November 30. John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, will oversee the review.

Members of Congress also are pressing for a full investigation into why Hasan was not detected and stopped. A Senate hearing on Hasan is scheduled for next week.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan’s repeated contact with the cleric. The FBI said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn’t linked to terrorism.

Representative Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, and others have called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan’s contacts with a radical imam and others of concern to the US, and what they did with the information. Mr Hoekstra confirmed this week that the US government knew of about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and a radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

Staff overseeing Hasan’s training had reported that he was at times belligerent in his frequent discussions about his Muslim faith and was considered a lazy worker.

Army officials have said they believe Hasan acted alone when he jumped on a table with two handguns last week, shouted “Allahu akbar” and opened fire inside a building at Fort Hood. The 13 people killed included a pregnant soldier and at least three other mental health professionals.

Hasan could face additional charges, said Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman Chris Grey. It had not been decided whether to charge Hasan with the death of the soldier’s unborn child, officials said.

Hasan was charged in the hospital without his lawyers present, Mr Galligan said.

“What I find disturbing is that my client is in ICU, and he’s 150 miles south of his defence counsel, and he’s being served with the charges,” he said.

“Given his status as a patient, I’m troubled by this procedure and that I’m not there. I’m in the dark, and that shouldn’t be the case. I am mad.”

Months before the shootings, doctors and staff overseeing Hasan’s training reported viewing him at times as defensive and argumentative in his frequent discussions of his faith.

Hasan was characterised as a mediocre student and lazy worker, which concerned the doctors and staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a military medical school in Bethesda, Maryland, the official said.

Even outside the military, Hasan’s behaviour drew attention. Golam Akhter, a civil engineer from Bethesda, Maryland, said on Thursday that he had spoken with Hasan about 10 times at the Muslim Community Centre in Silver Spring before Hasan left for Texas last summer.

“He used to not believe that 9/11 was solely the work of Middle East people,” Mr Akhter said, referring to the September 11 attacks. “His main thing was, ’America is killing Muslims in the Middle East’. That made him very, very upset.”

Mr Akhter said he sensed that Hasan was “a troubled man” and feels guilty for not alerting others.

“I tried to convince him to try to be a moderate Muslim,” Mr Akhter said.

Hasan repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates at Walter Reed, his superiors and even in his research work, the military official said. His behaviour, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views.

But some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan’s behaviour, the official said.

Some questioned Hasan’s sympathies as an Army psychiatrist, whether he would be more aligned with Muslims fighting US troops. There also was some concern about whether he should continue to serve in the military, the official said.