Father of Colorado supermarket shooter believed he was possessed by an evil spirit

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) — The father of a mentally ill man who killed 10 people at a Colorado supermarket testified at his murder trial Tuesday that he believed his son might have been possessed by an evil spirit before the attack.

At some point before the 2021 Boulder attack, Moustafa Alissa recalled waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and his son, Ahmad Alissa, telling him to talk to a man who was in his room. Moustafa Alissa said they went to his son's room together and there was no one there.

Moustafa Alissa also said his son would sometimes talk to himself and break a car key that he feared would be used to track him, reiterating Monday's statement. from his wifeHe said he didn't know exactly what was wrong with his son, but in his home country of Syria, it was said that someone who behaved like that was possessed by an evil spirit or jinn.

“We thought he was probably just possessed by a ghost or something,” Moustafa Alissa told the court through an Arabic interpreter.

Ahmad Alissa was diagnosed with a severe case of schizophrenia after the shooting. He was only found fit to stand trial last year after a doctor prescribed the strongest antipsychotic available. No one disputes that he was the shooter at the supermarket, but he pleaded guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity.

The defense argues that he should be found not guilty because he was of unsound mind at the time of the shooting and was unable to distinguish between right and wrong.

Prosecutors and forensic psychologists who examined him for the court say that despite his mental illness, he was not delusional and knew what he was doing when he launched the attack. They point to the planning and research he did to prepare, and his fear of ending up in prison afterward, to show that Alissa knew what he was doing was wrong. However, the psychologists said they thought the voices played a role in the attack and do not believe the attack would have happened if he had not been mentally ill.

When asked by District Attorney Michael Dougherty why Moustafa Alissa did not seek treatment for his son, he said it would be very hard on his family if they had the reputation of having a “crazy son.”

“This is a disgrace for our culture,” he said.

During questioning, Moustafa Alissa, whose family owns several restaurants in the Denver area, also confirmed that Ahmad Alissa had promised to return a gun that jammed a few days before the shooting and that he had gone to the shooting range with his brothers at least once. Despite his concerns about his son's mental state, he said he did nothing to take the guns away from him.

Against this background, Dougherty suspected that his son's condition might not have been as bad as his family now portrayed it.

“He was not normal, but we did not expect him to do what he did,” said Moustafa Alissa.