Lawyer injects own blood into food in UK supermarkets; jury deliberating insanity defense

Surveillance video has been released showing a lawyer injecting his own blood into food in a United Kingdom supermarket, Metro U.K. reported.

What are the details?

Leoaai Elghareeb, 37, entered three stores in Fulham, west London, last summer with a bucket containing hypodermic needles and injected his own blood into products such as apples and chicken tikka fillets, the outlet said.

Following the Aug. 25 incidents, the three affected supermarkets — Sainsbury’s Local, Tesco Express, and Little Waitrose — were forced to remove all products from their shelves as a precaution, costing them nearly £500,000 (over $677,000), the outlet said.

Metro U.K. said the supermarkets also recovered 21 syringes during deep cleaning efforts.

The outlet also said Elghareeb is accused of throwing a syringe at a doctor — who was uninjured after it bounced off her — and that he's also accused of pushing a security guard in the chest while shouting, "You are all vile people, and Sainsbury’s is vile!"

The outlet also said "there is no dispute Elghareeb carried out the offenses. His defense is that he was, in the legal sense, insane at the time they were committed."

Indeed, he denied three counts of contaminating goods and two counts of assault, Metro U.K. said, adding that a jury is now deliberating.

'The Truman Show'?

The court was told Elghareeb thought he was living in a simulation akin to "The Truman Show" in which "everything was fake" and that he wanted to alert "the real police" to get rid of "an implant in his brain" which he thought military intelligence was using to monitor him, the outlet noted.

In addition, he was said to have regularly used crystal meth to self-medicate mental health problems, Metro U.K. reported.

Dr. Bradley Hillier, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, said Elghareeb was "severely psychotic" at the time of his offenses and could not understand that his actions were "legally and morally wrong," the outlet noted.

"He was not thinking straight," Hillier added to Metro U.K. "He was in a situation where he was trying to escape this [world] that the psychosis had created for him." The doctor also said Elghareeb described himself as being "so burdened and tortured," the outlet noted.

Jurors will continue deliberations Thursday, Metro U.K. said.