She’s not insane. She’s intractable.

A psychiatric assessment has found her perfectly mentally fit to stand trial.

Our laws are not her laws. Her law is sharia law.

She worships at the altar of Islamic State.

And what this woman is alleged to have done — attack customers and staff at a Canadian Tire outlet last June 3, with a golf club and a large knife and a bow — she vows to attempt again.

Speaking through an Arabic interpreter in Scarborough court on Wednesday morning — though occasionally in the proceeding she also spoke English, quite competently — Rehab Dughmosh made this declaration: “Tell her I will always be a supporter of the Islamic State until the last day of my life. If you allow me to go out and leave I will do exactly what I tried to do last time and failed.”

Getting the 32-year-old woman to engage with the court has been like moving a mountain of stubbornness and defiance.

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On two previous occasions, the Syrian-Canadian — and by the way, she wants her Canadian citizenship revoked — has refused to participate in what is now common video-link hearings from her current place of residence, the Vanier Centre for Women in Milton, Ont. Third time ’round, Justice Kimberley Crosbie reluctantly authorized security personnel to bring Dughmosh into the video room at the jail, by whatever means necessary. Thus a “retraction team” somehow got her in front of the camera, face bare. That was in early September.

Wednesday, the woman walked into the dock, in person, flanked by four court officers. She was clad in a tunic green tracksuit and hijab pulled across her face, revealing only the eyes.

First words out of her mouth, via interpreter: “I want to stay seated.”

It is routine for defendants, whilst in the box, to stand when they are being addressed, certainly when they are being formally indicted.

Last time I witnessed anyone refusing to stand in court, even for a judge’s entrance, was at a Toronto proceeding involving a member of Canada’s notorious Khadr clan. In that instance, mother and sister of the defendant — not Omar, one of his brothers — remained insolently stapled to their seat, presumably to demonstrate their contempt for Canadian courts.

There is no law but one law and fie on your Canadian institutions.

Well, inside this Canadian institution, Dughmosh was facing 21 charges, including four counts of attempted murder, with 14 of them related to terror and laid by the RCMP following the original Toronto police investigation of the Canadian Tire incident at Cedarbrae Mall, which resulted in a clutch of plain old criminal charges — assault, assault with a weapon, threatening death etc.

On Monday, the registrar read out the 14 terrorism-related charges — apparently the original criminal offences have been folded in — in the formal indictment procedure, charges laid under Section 83.18 (1) of the Criminal Code. To wit: Every one who knowingly participates in or contributes to, directly or indirectly, any activity of a terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years.”

But before we got that far, Crosbie, overweening in her patience and decorum, wanted to make absolutely certain that the defendant understood what was happening in the aftermath of the psychiatric assessment report received by the court several weeks ago. “As a result of that report, I have no reason to believe that you are not fit to stand trial. We need to determine what the next step is. You told me (at an earlier proceeding) you wished to plead guilty.”

Dughmosh: “No. I am not guilty.”

Alrighty then.

Crosbie explained the three options available to the defendant: To have a trial, in Ontario Court, under another judge; to opt for trial before a judge at the Superior Court of Justice; or to go for Door No. 3 — Superior Court, with a judge and jury.

Dughmosh: Nope, none of the above. “Not even one.”

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Continuing: “All you non-believers. I do not believe what you believe. Tell her I am still a supporter of the Islamic State and I am not guilty and I don’t want to go to bail court.”

More patience from Crosbie. “This is not bail court.’’

Dughmosh: “OK. So I decide and I determine and I don’t have to be here.”

Crosbie: “If you do not make a choice, I will deem that you would wish to be tried before a judge and jury.”

Dughmosh: “I don’t want anyone. Stop the court!”

Dughmosh has repeatedly rejected representation by a lawyer and expressed no wish for a preliminary hearing in the matter. Federal Crown Bradley Reitz told Crosbie he wanted to go straight to trial. And that’s what is going to happen.

It is too easy, too glib, to posit that individuals who believe as Dughmosh apparently does — in militant jihad, in the apostasy of secular laws — are screwy in the head rather than genuinely Islamist inspired. But Dughmosh, according to her psychiatric assessment, isn’t a loon, at least in so far as she understands her predicament and the legal process. She was committed enough, police alleged when they laid the first charges, to have gone overseas with the objective of joining Islamic State, or ISIS or Daesh, or whatever we’re calling it these days in hypercorrect company, in Syria but was intercepted in Turkey and sent back to Canada.

She does have issues, though.

“They have sent me to the hospital to assess if I have a mental problem,” Dughmosh complained to Crosbie. “And if I did have mental problems then I would not continue with the court. And from the beginning in jail they would offer me the medication and they still bring me to court. Can you explain?”

Crosbie laid down the law, gently. “Whether or not there is any mental issue, when people are told to attend court, they must attend court. That happens two ways: One is on your own volition. Or what happened the last time you appeared on video, by officers bringing you up by force.”

Dughmosh was apparently still stewing about her treatment in that episode. “I do not forgive them for taking off my head dress . . . they should have taken me in a more humane way.”

Rather rich coming from someone alleged to have attacked strangers with a knife, a bow and a golf club whilst shouting: “Allahu akbar!” (God is great.)

She will next be in court, in downtown Toronto, on October 11.

“Going forward, it’s obviously preferable if you go to court on your own free will,” said Crosbie. “You do not have a choice about that. You must attend court and are required to do so.”

Dughmosh, from beneath her veil of sagacity: “Then that doesn’t mean it’s real freedom.”

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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