The Insanity of the Faithful

"The issue before me is not whether Esseghaier was fit at the time when his trial commenced or concluded. Rather the issue is whether he is fit now, at the time of sentencing."
"It can be seen that Esseghaier made coherent and explainable decisions not to retain counsel, to represent himself at trial and to remain silent for the most part.
"In my view there is not a scintilla of evidence from the pretrial and trial record to suggest he was unfit to stand trial nor did anyone ever raise the matter at trial or suggest otherwise."
"Dr. Ramshaw’s report and testimony contained a number of serious flaws."
“"I am left with an unsatisfactory psychiatric assessment to which I can presently attach little or no weight. Accordingly, this is a proper case to allow the Crown to seek a further assessment by a different psychiatrist."
"The biggest difficulty I’m having is with jurisdiction. The whole Criminal Code regime for fitness at trial has nothing to do with this case."
Justice Michael Code, Toronto

"This report of Ramshaw, it’s wrongful and false. It’s lying. You know very well that I am very healthy in terms of mental and in terms of psychology."
"I don’t want to listen to the lies of this woman."

"If one of those two options are not fulfilled, [Ramshaw withdraw her report or court remove her assessment from his file], I will not accept the second assessment. I will fight up to my death, I don’t care."

Chiheb Esseghaier, convicted Islamist terrorist

Chris Young/The Canadian Press   Chiheb Esseghaier was found guilty in March of plotting to derail a Via Rail train.

"As a consequence of (Esseghaier’s) psychosis, that is his loss of touch with reality and his delusional beliefs, it is my opinion that he is not able to communicate and participate in the court proceedings."
"He believes he is a visitor to the court."
Dr. Lisa Ramshaw, senior forensic psychiatrist, Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, Toronto

So there has emerged a question whether or not the 32-year-old doctoral student from Tunisia, studying at Quebec’s prestigious Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), when he was granted a student visa in 2010 and enrolled as a PhD student in the field of biosensors, is fully sane. On the record of a devout Muslim, purporting to represent the interests of other Muslim students enrolled at the INRS, he insisted that a prayer room be set aside for the use of Muslim students.

This demand is consistent with what Muslim students generally feel entitled to.

The man received an award acknowledging his success in designing a useful biotechnology tool. He was described as socially awkward, had less than a practical sense in ordinary matters, but he was fanatical about his religion, and his belief in the Koran was absolute. How is it possible that a man possessed of highly technical ability, one who was capable of creating a sophisticated device useful to medical science, a man who travelled abroad to attend scientific conferences is not legally sane?

The question has arisen, that if he is psychologically unhinged how can he be held responsible for plotting along with his accomplice Raed Jaser, to create a violent railway bridge catastrophe in southern Ontario? According to Toronto forensic psychiatrist Dr. Lisa Ramshaw, the man likely suffers from schizophrenia. "He had no apparent filter and talked about whatever was on his mind, from his religious beliefs to his wet dreams."

Sounds like the typical Islamist jihadist, those who are capable of setting aside any absurd notion of human rights for the greater pleasure of unleashing their psychotic impulses as agents of Islamic conquest, for they are enjoined by the most elemental precepts of Islam that it is their duty to engage in jihad to expand Islamic rule until the world contains none but those who worship the only true religion, having destroyed all those who refuse their implacable invitation.

To tolerant Westerners that focus on conquest, the willingness to commit atrocities to gain that goal, the exhibitionist beheadings, crucifixions, suicide bombings, slavery, mass rape and group executions seem insanely inhumane, but they do exemplify what Islamist jihadis celebrate as victories on the way to total conquest. To the West, with its heightened awareness of the sensitivity of Muslims to perceived slights against the Prophet Mohammad, or Islam, criticism is to be avoided.

Chiheb Esseghaier is possessed of the very same demon that drives all Islamist jihadists. He is somewhat tetched in the sense of being frankly honest about his intentions and his beliefs, presenting as a naif in some ways, but an unreconstructed jihadist in all others, prepared to sacrifice innocent lives to the greater glory of achieving the final and complete Islamic Caliphate. His misfortune is that he was caught as a result of his clumsy lack of caution.

Simply put: he trusted someone whom he believed was a devout, jihad-supporting Muslim.

That he demanded to be tried not in a court of Canadian law, but by Koranic law, is simply a reflection of all true Muslim fundamentalists' demands, unwilling to recognize man-made jurisprudence, holding that only Sharia as the expression of Islamic principles would be capable of judging him as a loyal and honourable mujahideen in the global movement to enthrone international Islam.

As a Tunisian he is following the path that many have taken. Tunisia was the first of the Arab countries to experience the horribly misnamed "Arab Spring". It was also the only one not roiled by violence. As an Arab nation it was also fairly cosmopolitan in outlook, quite westernized, and prided itself on its democracy, even while its government was horribly corrupt. And it is at the present time, the Arab country which has contributed a greater number of Islamist jihadists to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant than any other.