SEATTLE, Washington – The leader of the men’s group at Word of Faith testified Monday at the trial of Naveed Haq. Albert Montelongo said Naveed Haq attended the one thousand-strong non-denominational church in Kennewick, WA for four or five months starting in late 2005. Haq found Christianity to be a loving religion, said Montelongo, and was baptized in the church.

One of the defendant’s treating psychiatrists told jurors the drug lithium is “the cornerstone for treatment of the whole bipolar spectrum.” (The defense, of course, points to the fact that Naveed Haq was taken off this medication as one of the contributing factors to his actions on July 28, 2006.) “If you take the lithium away,” said the doctor, “then things will start to unravel very quickly.”

Haq’s father testified earlier in the day his son made a request the evening before the rampage; “I want to be admitted voluntarily,” Mian Haq said his son told him. “I am going to have a relapse.”

Haq, a 30-year-old Muslim American, is accused of killing one woman and wounding five others in an attack at the Jewish Federation.

–In Session staff