Taheri-Azar ruled competent for trial

HILLSBOROUGH -- The man accused of driving a rented SUV through UNC-Chapel Hill's campus last year aiming to kill people for religious reasons was today deemed competent to stand trial in Orange County Superior Court.

In March, Mohammed Taheri-Azar, 24, was escorted out of court after saying he hated Americans and Jews, and called his lawyer a moron. From there he was sent to Dorothea Dix hospital for a mental health evaluation.

In March 2006, Taheri-Azar is accused of driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee through the "Pit" area on campus, hitting nine people, though none required overnight hospital care, saying he aimed to avenge Muslim deaths at the hands of Americans. The "Pit" is in front of UNC-CH's student union and is a popular student gathering spot.

He faces nine counts of attempted first degree murder and nine counts of felonious assault.

Today, he appeared quietly in court with a gray pinstripe suit and hair parted on the left, not uttering a word.

That was in contrast to his last court appearance in March. At that time, Taheri-Azar called his lawyer, public defender James Williams, a moron, and said he hated all Americans and Jews.

Taheri-Azar was then ordered to go to Dorothea Dix hospital to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine if he was competent to stand trial.

Williams, told reporters later that his client had a "severe mental illness."

Superior Court Judge Ken Titus today opened a sealed mental health evaluation, read it and said the evaluation indicated Taheir-Azar currently was considered competent to stand trial, though that was subject to change.

Well more than a year has passed since the incident. Taheri-Azar has had a volatile relationship with his lawyer and family, sometimes cooperating and talking with them and sometimes not.

Initially, Taheri-Azar declared he intended to represent himself. But he refused to submit to a mental health examination to determine whether he was competent to represent himself and chose instead to keep his lawyer.

Similar to his relationships with family and his lawyer, Taheri-Azar also has appeared to vacillate between contrition and righteousness in letters written to the Daily Tar Heel, UNC-CH's student newspaper.

His changes in temperament are also evident in letters he has written to the court. Two months after the March outburst in court, Taheri-Azar wrote to the court apologizing for his "distasteful conduct."

In that letter, dated May 20, Taheri-Azar also apologized his actions on the UNC-CH campus.

"I sincerely regret what I did on that day," he wrote, saying he wished to work for his father's general contracting company in Anaheim, Calif. "Please release me from state custody so that I may pursue my goal of living a productive life in California."