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12:00 AM CST on Saturday, November 21, 2009
FORT HOOD, Texas – Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan faces a pretrial confinement hearing today at the San Antonio Army post where he lies paralyzed in a heavily guarded intensive-care unit. Meanwhile, there are growing questions about the FBI's explanation for why it didn't investigate the psychiatrist months ago after discovering that he was corresponding with an extremist cleric in Yemen. Hasan's e-mails to Anwar al-Awlaki began as religious queries but led to discussion of financial transfers, The Washington Post reported, citing two unnamed sources who have been briefed on the subject. The FBI has said it did not investigate because Hasan's e-mails seemed consistent with research he was doing. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, previously told The Dallas Morning News that Hasan wired money to Pakistan, which is a hub for terrorist fundraising. McCaul did not link the transfers to the U.S.-born al-Awlaki, whose terrorist ties have been investigated for at least a decade. Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would investigate whether the e-mails should have been shared with military officials. Today's confinement hearing could speed the psychiatrist's transfer to a jail cell to await trial on 13 counts of premeditated murder, his civilian attorney said Friday. "I'll be voicing objections," said retired Col. John P. Galligan, a former military judge and Belton lawyer. "I'm concerned about the apparent rush with which this is being done." Galligan said Hasan is paralyzed below the waist and in pain above, the result of police gunfire that ended the Fort Hood massacre Nov. 5. "I know he wants some assurances that his medical treatment is not going to be prematurely curtailed," the lawyer said. Fort Hood has no detention facility, so soldiers awaiting military trial and those sentenced to brief military confinement are commonly held in the Bell County Jail. Maj. Robert Patterson, the jail's supervisor, said he was asked the day after the massacre whether the lockup could house Hasan. He said it can, as it offers around-the-clock nursing care and a physician visiting three days a week. Army prisoners awaiting military trials are separated from civilian prisoners. An officer, such as Hasan, would be separated from enlisted men. Today's hearing at Fort Sam Houston will be closed to the public. At such hearings, authorities typically present evidence that the accused is a flight risk, a danger or both. If the hearing confirms Hasan's confinement, he could be jailed as soon as doctors say he no longer needs hospital care.
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