Violent student may be 'mental'

WILLEMSTAD (CMC):

The court-appointed lawyer for a Canadian student charged with fatally stabbing his American classmate and wounding a professor at an offshore medical school in Curaçao last week has said his client may need to be committed to a mental institution.

Attorney Marius Romer said that Moustapha Khalesa, 20, of Ontario, Canada, may be transferred to a mental institution pending the results of a psychiatric evaluation.

He said doctors have told him that Khalesa is not coherent and is in a state of shock.

"Somebody did something terrible," Romer told reporters. "We have to take several measures on humanitarian grounds."

Argument

Prosecutors said Khalesa got into an argument with a professor, Dr Farrah Syed, and stabbed her in his dormitory at the Caribbean Medical University.

When Jersey City, New Jersey, student, Kan Mei Chan, 24, a gra-duate of Dickinson High School and Rutgers University in New Jersey, came to help the injured teacher, Kalesa stabbed her, too. She was declared dead at the scene, authorities added.

Prosecutor Gillano Schoop told The Jersey Journal newspaper yesterday it may be a couple of days before Khalesa can give a statement.

Inspector Reggie Huggins of the Curaçao Police Department said he did not believe Khalesa's claim that he was unaware of what had happened.