The suspected killer of California student Blaze Bernstein has denied allegations he carried out a hate crime, with his lawyer saying he suffers from a “serious mental disorder”.

Samuel Woodward, 21, attended the brief hearing last Wednesday after prosecutors requested a hate-crime enhancement to the case, a move that could result in a longer prison sentence.

A judge is expected to decide next week if there is enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial.

His lawyer, Edward Muñoz, later said his client was a victim himself: “He has Asperger’s disorder. He has a lot of issues, I think, around sexual orientation.”

Autistic people “don’t formulate lasting personal relationships in their life,” Mr Muñoz told BuzzFeed after the latest court hearing. “They’re very isolated people. That leads them to go where they’re accepted.”

In his interview with the website he did not refer directly to Mr Woodward’s membership of the California Atomwaffen division — Atomwaffen means “atomic weapons” in German — a neo-Nazi group connected to other murders in the area.

But the lawyer confirmed Mr Woodward had found connections based on his race.

“He is a blonde, blue-eyed young man,” he said. “There’s only going to be certain clubs he’s going to be allowed into.”

Blaze Bernstein’s body was found on the outskirts of a local park in Orange County on January 10, a week after he was reported missing.