COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - A lawyer for the man accused of killing three people and wounding nine others in a shooting rampage at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic in November asked a judge on Thursday to commit the defendant to a state mental hospital.

Robert Lewis Dear, 57, accused of shooting three people to death and wounding nine others at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado last month, attends his hearing to face 179 counts of various criminal charges at an El Paso County court in Colorado Springs, Colorado December 9, 2015. REUTERS/Andy Cross/Pool

The motion by the public defender was an indication that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of Robert Lewis Dear found him unfit to serve as his own attorney, as he has requested, in a case over the first fatal attack on a U.S. abortion provider since 2009.

Rather than rule immediately on Dear’s competency, El Paso County Judge Gilbert Martinez acted on the evaluation report by granting a prosecution motion for a further hearing on the matter on April 28.

Dear, 57, a South Carolina native who has declared himself guilty and a “warrior for the babies” in courtroom outbursts, was ordered by Martinez in December to submit to a mental examination after he demanded to fire his public defender and act as his own lawyer.

The results of that assessment remain under seal, but the defendant himself said in a jailhouse interview with Colorado Springs television station KKTV last week that he had been informed that doctors found him incompetent to stand trial.

Dear, who insisted he is competent, previously told a Denver station that he intends to plead guilty and expects to be executed.

Entering the courtroom for Thursday’s proceedings, shackled and dressed in lime green jail garb, the bearded defendant was heard to say, “The Hebrew word for lightning is ‘barak,’ like Barack Obama,” but the meaning of his comment was not known.

‘Barak’ means lightning in Hebrew.

Dear sat slumped quietly in his chair through the rest of the proceedings.

He has been held without bond since surrendering at the end of a bloody five-hour siege on Nov. 27 at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, where police said Dear opened fire with a rifle outside the building, then stormed inside.

Killed in the rampage were a U.S. Army veteran and a mother of two who happened to be in the clinic’s waiting area as well as a police officer.

Dear, charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault in the attack, has not formally entered a plea. Prosecutors have yet to say whether they intend to seek the death penalty if Dear is convicted.