invenice.net - Padilla Found guilty in U.S. charged terror case

WASHINGTON - The guilty verdict returned against Jose Padilla in a Miami courtroom Thursday marked a victory in the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism, but prosecutors were only able to secure a conviction on charges that were much weaker than the initial headline-making allegations that Padilla was planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.

Padilla, the former Chicago gang member who converted to Islam and began an international odyssey that took him to terrorist training facilities in Central Asia, was convicted of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim overseas and supporting terrorism. He faces life imprisonment.

In the end, it was a case that bore little resemblance to the Justice Department's original accusation that Padilla was a locked-and-loaded Al Qaeda agent ready to rain destruction upon an American city.

Still, the administration can claim vindication in a case that drew international attention, one where an acquittal would have been a profound embarrassment. The conviction could also help to moderate criticism of the way Padilla was handled by the government. Initially, in a highly controversial move, he was declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and jailed in a Navy brig in South Carolina for 3 1/2 years before prosecutors charged him with a federal crime.

It also bolsters an administration that has enjoyed relatively few high-profile successes in busting up terror cells. To date, its largest triumph has been Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack and now faces life imprisonment. Beyond that and hundreds of low-grade collars for offenses such as immigration violations, the administration has been known for sounding the alarm over threats that never came to be, as much as for locking up terrorists.

"This is a huge win for the government and for the Department of Justice," said Guy Lewis, the former U.S. attorney in Miami and a former Justice Department official. "A lot of people from the White House on down were watching this one."

Criminal defense lawyers and civil liberties advocates were more measured in their reaction. Some fear that Padilla's conviction will give the government license to treat other terrorism suspects in the same manner, shuttling them between military detention and the criminal justice system as circumstances warrant.

"For many defense lawyers, this was a cautionary tale for citizens," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "In the view of many in the legal community, they were successful in gaming the system."

Padilla and two other defendants were convicted on three counts, including conspiracy to murder and providing material support to terrorists. The jury was out for only little more than a day. Padilla will be sentenced Dec. 5 and faces life in prison.

Winding legal journey

Padilla's five-year legal journey illustrates the sometimes confusing and contradictory approaches the administration has taken in prosecuting suspected terrorists. An American citizen, the Brooklyn-born Padilla moved to Chicago at age 5 and eventually ran with city street gangs. After several arrests, he began what prosecutors say was a drift toward radicalism.

He traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan to study and attended what the government says was an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. In May 2002, he was arrested at O'Hare International Airport with a suitcase full of $10,000 in cash and a list of alleged Al Qaeda agents. Originally held as a material witness, he was later declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" by the Pentagon. The classification was controversial, because unlike detainees grabbed on battlefields in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Padilla was a citizen arrested in the United States.

The attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, publicly labeled Padilla a "known terrorist" who had trained with Al Qaeda. "We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb," Ashcroft announced.

Padilla since has claimed that while in military custody he was abused and interrogated unlawfully. His lawyers argued the resulting mental damage made him unfit to stand trial.

And at one point during his military detention, the Justice Department admitted that the information obtained from Padilla could not be used in court to prosecute him.

Padilla's citizenship served as the basis for an extended legal challenge that may have ultimately swayed the Bush administration to charge Padilla in Miami federal court in 2005, saying he was part of a South Florida terrorist-training network.

A federal appeals court went so far as to block Padilla's transfer to civilian authorities, complaining that the government had sought first to justify Padilla's detention because of the supposed threat he posed to national security, and then asked that he be tried in federal court on an entirely different set of charges. (The Supreme Court stepped in and allowed the transfer.)

The sudden switch in the administration's strategy was viewed by many as a way to evade Supreme Court review of whether the government can hold U.S. citizens indefinitely without legal counsel. Today, after the Padilla verdict, that issue still remains unresolved by the high court.

Watching with interest are lawyers for accused terrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. Along with Padilla, al-Marri is the only other suspected terrorist captured in the U.S. known to be designated an enemy combatant. Al-Marri was arrested in 2001 in Peoria, Ill. But unlike Padilla, he was first charged in federal court but then shifted to military custody 18 months later. He is now in the same South Carolina brig that once held Padilla.

Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer for the Brennan Center for Justice who represents al-Marri, says the Padilla verdict "shows the criminal justice system works and if the government accuses individuals in this country of criminal wrongdoing, they should put them on trial and not just lock them in a stockade for life."

Looking ahead

Indeed, one question arising from the Padilla verdict is whether it will encourage authorities to attempt to bring more cases against alleged terrorists in federal court rather than through the military system.

Hafetz, however, says the government wants it both ways, by first using the enemy combatant status to interrogate the prisoner and then employing the courts to try the case. That means its strategy is unlikely to change, he says. "The reason they detained Padilla and al-Marri was not because they couldn't prosecute them, but because they wanted to engage in illegal interrogation techniques."

By most any measure, the administration's record in terror prosecutions has been mixed. According to a report released last year by researchers from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, of some 1,300 terrorism-related convictions since Sept. 11, 2001, only 1 percent resulted in sentences of 20 years or more and only 5 percent received sentences greater than 5 years. Added to that were well-publicized prosecutions of alleged terror cells in Detroit and Miami -- the latter involving a supposed threat to the Sears Tower -- that critics said had been exaggerated.

Justice Department officials Thursday stressed the need to maintain a flexible approach in the wake of the Padilla verdict, saying that future terror prosecutions need to be handled "on a case-by-case basis."

It is that approach, according to critics such as law professor Turley, that led the government to spend five years and untold dollars shifting Padilla around, only to convict him on something "they could have charged him with a week after his arrest."

Turley said Padilla's attorneys will likely appeal his conviction, perhaps with claims of his impaired mental state resulting from his military detention as the centerpiece of that appeal. Regardless, he added, the lesson of the case is "the chilling thought that you can abuse a citizen for three years with no recourse available to that citizen."

Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Craig Morford said the administration would not second-guess the various courses it chose in the case.

"You can never go back and try to figure that out," Morford said. "I mean the truth of the matter is we're under a threat and we are dealing with challenges that we've never dealt with before."

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Timeline

1970: Jose Padilla is born in Brooklyn.

1975: He moves to Chicago.

1985: At age 15, Padilla is convicted as a juvenile of armed robbery and put in Illinois Youth Center.

1988: He is released.

1991: Padilla moves to Florida, where he is convicted of a gun charge.

2001: Court records show Padilla living in Cairo. He allegedly visits Afghanistan.

2002: FBI arrests Padilla at O'Hare International Airport in May after he arrives from Pakistan via Zurich. President Bush designates Padilla, a U.S. citizen, an "enemy combatant." Officials say he is a suspect in a plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb."

2003: 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York orders Padilla released from military custody and tried in civilian courts if the government chooses.

2005: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., rules that the government can hold Padilla indefinitely. Later, the government adds Padilla to an existing criminal indictment, charging he was part of a terror cell. No reference to a "dirty bomb."

2006: Padilla pleads not guilty.

2007: Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi are convicted on all charges.

Wednesday, 09 July 2008

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