Zorkot, the third-year medical student who was arrested last September for deploying in Hemlock Park with loaded AK-47, has changed his mind about waiving his preliminary exam, and wants one after all. (“Accused Hemlock Park gunman back in court”).
He waived his preliminary exam in December, letting himself be bound over for trial in circuit court. But now the circuit court has granted Zorkot’s motion to come back to Judge Hultgren’s courtroom Dearborn’s 19th District Court for his preliminary exam. At a preliminary a prosecutor must show the court that there’s sufficient probable cause that a crime has been committed to warrant trial. The new hearing is now scheduled for April 18.
City officials say Zorkot has not been tied to terrorism. But Zorkot was running a pro-Hezbollah website, and posted photographs of himself in Lebanon wearing military garb, and posing in front of heroic photographs of Hezbollah Headman Hassan Nasrallah (known locally in Dearborn as “Our Leader!”). Zorkot was charged with “one count of carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent, one count felony firearm and one count of possession of a loaded firearm.”When he was stopped by police exiting Hemlock Park he fought back so hard he had to be Tasered twice.
Frankly, this may all turn out to be nothing, or at least, nothing that ever adds up to anything. Zorkot may have become the victim of his own fantasies of himself as a fighter, and got caught playing army in the park with a loaded AK. I am interested, though, in the basis for the dangerous weapon with unlawful intent count.
