Saudi teen pleads not guilty to disrupting US flight, support for Bin Laden
Yazeed Mohammed A. Abunayyan
WASHINGTON: A Saudi Arabia teenager who disrupted an American plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing after he lit up a cigarette and allegedly praised Osama bin Laden, pleaded not guilty on Friday to interfering with a plane crew.
A lawyer for 19-year-old Yazeed Mohammed A. Abunayyan told a judge his client suffers from “unspecified mental illness” that requires care at the Multnomah County Detention Center.
US Magistrate Court Judge Janice Stewart ordered Abunayyan held in jail as a flight risk and set a trial date of April 24, saying she believes Abunayyan’s mental health issues will be dealt with “in due course.”
According to court records, an attendant aboard a Continental Airlines flight to Houston on Tuesday asked Abunayyan to stop smoking an electronic cigarette, but he refused. He’s also accused of yelling profanities and throwing punches at the flight attendant and several passengers. Authorities say Abunayyan also was “singing or speaking about” Osama bin Laden and his hatred of women.
“When they asked him to stop the cigarette … he just went crazy, I couldn’t stop him,” Abunayyan’s cousin Fahad Alsubaie told the Medford Mail Tribune.
Alsubaie told the paper that Abunayyan suffers from schizophrenia and hadn’t taken his medication for about three weeks.
BM
Section: Latest News, North America, Saudi Arabia
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