Prosecutors Prepare to Make Case Against Accused Colorado Gunman Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, as Trial Begins Thursday.
The highly anticipated trial of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, accused of killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021, is set to commence on Thursday.
According to police, Alissa deliberately targeted people inside and outside the store in the college town of Boulder, killing most of them in just over a minute.
Alissa’s lawyers have acknowledged that their client was the shooter, but the three-week trial is expected to center on whether or not Alissa was legally sane — able to understand the difference between right and wrong — at the time of the shooting.
Alissa is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, multiple counts of attempted murder and other offenses, including having six high-capacity ammunition magazine devices banned in Colorado after previous mass shootings.
Prosecutors will have the burden of proving Alissa was sane, attempting to show he knew what he was doing and intended to kill people at the King Soopers store.
The motivations behind Alissa’s actions remain unclear, but a mental health evaluator testified during a competency hearing last year that Alissa said he bought firearms to carry out a mass shooting and suggested that he wanted police to kill him.
The defense argued in a court filing that his relatives said he irrationally believed that the FBI was following him and that he would talk to himself as if he were talking to someone who was not there. However, prosecutors point out Alissa was never previously treated for mental illness and was able to work up to 60 hours a week leading up to the shooting, something they say would not have been possible for someone severely mentally ill.
Alissa’s trial has been delayed because experts repeatedly found he was not able to understand legal proceedings and help his defense. But after Alissa improved after being forcibly medicated, Judge Ingrid Bakke ruled in October that he was mentally competent, allowing proceedings to resume.
