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Fed drops attempt to charge padilla for dirty bomb { November 23 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-cindict23nov23,0,7808353.story?coll=sfla-home-headlineshttp://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-cindict23nov23,0,7808353.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
Dirty bomb suspect Padilla indicted on charges of supporting terrorism overseas
By Sean Gardiner
Staff Writer
Posted November 23 2005
After holding him as an "enemy combatant" for 3 ½ years without charges, the federal government indicted Jose Padilla and four others as part of what it says was a South Florida-based terrorist support cell that funded and helped recruit for a holy war.
But lawyers for Padilla, whose family lives in Plantation, were quick to point out that the 31-page, 11-count indictment unsealed Tuesday contained none of the most damning allegations government officials initially leveled at Padilla, including any mention of a dirty bomb plot or planned attack on U.S. soil.
The lawyers suggested that charging Padilla in the superceding indictment is politically motivated. The case's move to Miami's federal court possibly scuttles a Supreme Court review of the policy on enemy combatants, who are allowed to be held by the government without being charged or having a hearing.
Padilla's attorneys are fighting that ruling and the government's opposition brief was due Monday outlining why the U.S. Supreme Court should not address the issue.
"I think this tells us two things," said Jonathan Freidman, Padilla's lead lawyer. "They're trying to duck the issue in the Supreme Court. And when a government gets to hold people without having to prove their case, they'll allege a whole bunch of things. But when they have to prove a case in a court of law, it has to be a lot more responsible."
Freidman is hopeful the Supreme Court will take up the case anyway.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said one federal court already had deemed the enemy combatant clause constitutional and they were confident the latest attempt to overturn it would also be turned back. She also said Padilla's attorneys "have been asking for him to be put in a criminal justice system, and now he'll be in the criminal justice system with a very strong case against him."
The indictment transfers Padilla's case to Miami's federal court. His transfer from a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., where he has been held since June 2004, to the Federal Detention Center in Miami is pending paperwork releasing him from Department of Defense custody.
Padilla and four others, including two men with local ties, stand accused of being a part of a "North American support cell" designed to send "money, physical assets and mujahideen [or warriors] recruits to overseas conflicts for the purpose of fighting violent jihad [holy war]," according to the indictment.
The indictment states that the group was loyal to the "blind sheik," Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City, but doesn't provide specifics of that relationship.
Among the other suspects is Mohamed Hesham Youseff, 43, a former baggage handler at Miami International Airport, who records show lived in Hallandale Beach and Hollywood before moving to Egypt in 1998. Three others previously had been charged in the case: Adham Amin Hassoun, a computer programmer who lived in Sunrise with his wife and children; Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a Detroit public school official and Kassem Daher, who owned movie theaters in Alberta, Canada, prior to disappearing two years ago.
The men met at the Masjid Al-Iman mosque in Fort Lauderdale in the early 1990s, according to the indictment. Hassoun was the key player, sending money and organizing for recruits to go overseas to such places sas Somalia, Afghanistan, the Serbian province of Kosovo and the Russian republic of Chechnya to wage Islamic holy wars, the indictment states.
Hassoun sent about $60,000 to individuals or groups with terrorist ties between 1994 and 2001, according to the indictment.
One of those recruits, the indictment states, was Padilla. Born in Brooklyn, Padilla grew up in Chicago where he was said to have been a member of the Latin Kings street gang. He moved to South Florida in 1990, first living in Lauderhill, then Plantation, and was well known to local police. He later told authorities that he converted to Islam while incarcerated at the Broward County Jail.
Padilla's family could not be reached for comment Tuesday, despite attempts by telephone.
By 1996, he attracted the attention of Hassoun, who tabbed him as a "mujahideen," according to the indictment. On Sept. 5, 1998, with funds provided by Hassoun, he flew to Cairo and met Youssef, who had been there five months. By September 2000, Youssef reported to Hassoun that Padilla had "entered into the area of Usama," a reference to Osama Bin Laden's terrorism training camps in Afghanistan.
Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, director of the Miami-based American Muslim Association of North America, disputes Hassoun's tie to Padilla.
Hassoun wouldn't have affiliated himself with people he knew wanted to cause harm to the United States, Zakkout said, adding that he thinks the case against Hassoun is political. When Hassoun was first indicted in September 2004, Zakkout questioned the timing, noting that the presidential election was only two months away.
Hassoun's wife and three children left the United States and moved to Lebanon, Zakkout said.
Padilla was arrested May 8, 2002, at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. A month later, President Bush announced that Padilla was part of a plot to spread radioactive material across parts of the United States and that he was one of many "would-be killers" in custody.
The indictment returned last Thursday lends no support to that claim. The most serious charges include conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country and providing material support to terrorists overseas. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez declined to comment on the initial "dirty bomb" allegations at a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
The defendants face life in prison if convicted.
Ken Swartz, who represents Hassoun, said, "There is nothing new here, it was all expected and it will finally give us the opportunity to show what we intended to show all along, that he [Hassoun] is innocent." He said given that the case against Padilla hasn't changed substantially in two years, it's plausible the government "wanted to avoid a Supreme Court fight so they just decided to charge him in this case."
Bruce Rogow, a professor at Nova Southeastern University Law School, said given that Padilla was all but named in a similar indictment two years ago, the government's decision to charge him now is "very suspicious" and "raises legitimate [constitutional] concerns."
He said that historically, "in time of war the law is lost and the government can often times do things that it could not do in peace time and there is this sense of war that this government uses to justify its actions. We will see how close a scrutiny the courts will now give it."
Staff Writers Jon Burstein, John Holland, Lisa J. Huriash, Andrew Ryan, Kevin Smith and Staff Researcher Barabara Hijek contributed to this report.
Sean Gardiner can be reached at stgardiner@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4514.
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