Bomb suspect again writes gripes to judge

A Hillside man who was asked to only communicate through his lawyers with the federal judge overseeing his trial for trying to blow up a downtown bar in 2012 has again written the judge.

Adel Daoud, who previously wrote U. S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman to call Americans “Islamophobic” and suggest she read the Quran and seek his jurors from foreign countries, this time sent a litany of complaints about his treatment.

At a hearing last month, Coleman said Daoud’s trial, scheduled to begin Jan. 5, would be delayed while she decides whether he is mentally fit for trial. Lawyers had agreed to discuss a competency hearing after he wrote Coleman his first letter in November.

Daoud was arrested in September 2012 after he allegedly pushed the detonator on a fake car bomb in hopes of blowing up a downtown Chicago bar.

In his second letter to the judge, mailed Dec. 29, Daoud begins with complaints over bad quality sound and video on the video screen through which he receives visitors; and his family not receiving letters he’s mailed from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, nor he theirs.

It goes on to request the judge allow his best friend, Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, who pleaded guilty last August to attempting to provide support to a terrorist group, be jailed with Daoud, so the two can spend time together.

“When I got arrested, I thought I was only going to be in jail for a few days,” Daoud writes. “. . . they arrested my best friend. I was so sad that day but then I thought that maybe the FBI actually felt bad and thought I was lonely in jail so they locked upmy friend to keep me company . . . Please remove the separatee ( sic) between us. I want to spend time with him in case he goes to prison.”