A man accused of killing a fellow mental health patient at Canberra Hospital is set to face a murder trial after a court found him fit to plead.
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Teenager Aleu Mapiou, of Bonner, faced the ACT Magistrates Court via phone from custody on Tuesday.
He had previously pleaded not guilty to a murder charge laid over the death of Dusko Culibrk, 38, last November.
Mapiou has not entered pleas to two further charges that allege he prevented the carrying out of a forensic procedure.
The man, who was 18 at the time in question, allegedly did so by hindering a police officer and another person authorised to take hand and fingernail swabs in the wake of his arrest.
His lawyers, from Legal Aid ACT, previously requested a report from a forensic psychiatrist to determine whether Mapiou was fit to plead.
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They indicated he was likely to pursue a mental impairment defence to the murder charge if that was the case.
On Tuesday, defence lawyer Ketinia McGowan said the report had produced "no evidence to displace the presumption that he is fit to plead".
She accordingly invited magistrate James Lawton to find Mapiou was indeed fit, and to commit him to the ACT Supreme Court for trial.
The ACT's acting Director of Public Prosecutions, Anthony Williamson SC, did not oppose the committal.
After reading the mental health report, Mr Lawton formally found Mapiou was fit to plead.
He committed the teenager for trial and remanded him in custody until June 22, when Mapiou's case is due to go before the Supreme Court registrar for an administrative hearing.
Mapiou's whereabouts were not stated on Tuesday, but he was previously being detained at the Dhulwa secure mental health unit in Symonston.
He has been remanded in custody since his arrest within minutes of the alleged murder, which occurred around midnight on November 13.
At the time, Mapiou and Mr Culibrk were both patients in Canberra Hospital's adult mental health unit.
The pair were allegedly involved in an altercation, which resulted in hospital staff calling police.
Detective Superintendent Hall O'Meagher, ACT Policing's manager of criminal investigations, has previously told reporters his officers arrived to find staff "trying to revive and keep alive" Mr Culibrk.
Their efforts were unsuccessful and Mr Culibrk died at the scene.
Superintendent O'Meagher has also indicated police do not believe Mapiou used a weapon to commit the alleged murder.
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