An Australian man charged with murder in Syria is to undergo a medical assessment for possible mental impairment after his mother and a lawyer travelled to the country to advocate for him.
Patrick Stevenson, 20, a Muslim convert from the Gold Coast, is accused of shooting fellow Australian convert Abdullah Glen Burgess eight times with an AK-47 inside Burgess’s apartment in Idlib province late last year.
Stevenson’s mother, Angela Bell, and human rights lawyer Bernadette Zaydan went to Syria after it became clear that Burgess’s widow would not accept diya, or blood money, instead of a death sentence.
The widow, who is also Australian, is a witness in the case. She has not been named because she says doing so could put her in danger.
Bell and Ms Zaydan say they do not believe Stevenson is guilty of premeditated murder. They argue that his ADHD, serious learning difficulties and probable autism have been compounded by a recent head injury and months in a prison where nobody else speaks English.
Medical assessment ordered after plea
Ms Zaydan said she and a Syrian lawyer appointed by the Australian government had raised mental impairment at a court hearing on Wednesday night, Australian time. The court accepted the plea and ordered that Stevenson be medically assessed.
“His legal team was granted permission to be present at the assessment. Patrick was present, but he didn’t understand what was going on,” Ms Zaydan said.
Bell said she had visited her son three times since arriving in Syria and found him confused, with memory and concentration problems. She said he appeared to process information slowly and struggled to express himself.
“He is simply not the same child I knew before this,” she said.
Bell said Stevenson had a large wound on the back of his head and remembered waking in police custody while the injury was being stitched.
She has also negotiated permission to visit him daily in the Syrian prison. An application for Stevenson’s electronic devices to be returned was rejected without reasons being given, Ms Zaydan said.
The two men had converted to Islam independently in Australia before moving to Idlib province, which is controlled by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, an organisation the Australian government considers to be a terrorist group.
Bell has questioned the prosecution’s claim that her son confessed, saying he speaks no Arabic and could not have made the confession recorded in the court file.
The case is being heard by a religious court established under the local Islamist administration in Idlib. It is understood to deal predominantly with cases involving foreign fighters.
Bell said Burgess’s widow told the court, through an interpreter, that the dispute which preceded the shooting concerned a debt of about 10 Australian dollars. She said the widow told Stevenson he could have the money back, but that he did not respond.
“I won’t leave. I won’t leave him here. It’s not right. Who else is going to visit him in jail and speak English?” Bell said.
She added: “He’s not a foreign fighter. I do truly believe Patrick decided to come here on his own silly self, on a big lark.”
