The General Court in Makkah will pass sentence next week on the murder of nurse Abdul Qadir Al-Muhabi who was gunned down at King Abdul Aziz Hospital early July, 2009. The court has heard from witnesses over the last eight months, and the Attorney General has sought the death penalty for the accused after he recorded his confessions with investigators. The lawyer for the defendant has presented documents stating that his client has been recognized as mentally ill since the age of puberty and that he is still receiving treatment. It was reported at the time of the incident that the killer of Abdul Qader Al-Muhabi, a psychiatric male nurse, had been a patient of his at the King Abdul Aziz Hospital's Mental Health Department two years previously. The killer reportedly told investigators that “wild thoughts overpowered him for several days” before he plotted to actually kill the nurse, and that he stole the murder weapon - a machine gun - from his brother. The killer visited the hospital a day before he committed the act to check on his victim's working hours. Al-Muhabi was gunned down at dawn on a Friday after he answered a knock at his office door and was struck by a volley of gunfire from pointblank range.
