Rushdi attorney rules out insanity defense

Defense attorney Michael Malloy told Judge James Nilon Monday he is not pursuing a competency or insanity defense for an Upper Darby man facing the death penalty for the alleged murder of an infant in 2013.

Ummad Rushdi, 32, is charged with first-, second- and thirddegree murder, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse for allegedly killing 7-month-old Hamza Ali in August 2013 at his parent’s home in the 6600 block of Chestnut Street, Upper Darby, then transporting the body elsewhere and burying it at an unknown location.

Rushdi was arraigned in November 2013 and entered a plea of not guilty. Since that time, Malloy and death penalty counsel Scott Galloway have secured several continuances so that Rushdi could be evaluated by various experts to determine the state of his mental health.

Malloy said a specialist met with Rushdi three times, including one eight-hour session of intense testing, and had written up a final report. Malloy said he would not invoke a not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetency defense based on that report.

Galloway said his death penalty mitigation expert is also nearly finished, but needed to look over the report from Malloy’s specialist before filing a fi- nal report. He asked for an additional 30 to 45 days to have that completed.

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Wills suggested a tighter schedule of 30 days, arguing defense counsel has had more than a year to have these evaluations completed and has consistently missed the mark on deadlines.

Wills added that it was never made clear at the last listing on Feb. 1 that Galloway’s expert would need to review the report from Malloy’s expert before furnishing an opinion.

Rushdi has made several statements at status hearings over the past year, and Monday was no different.

“You know my question is the

DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA FILE PHOTO Ummad Rushdi