Islamic convert found guilty on terror conspiracy charge
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 17 August 2007
Jose Padilla, a young American convert to Islam, who was jailed without charge in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks and allegedly tortured, was convicted on terrorism conspiracy charges yesterday.
Mr Padilla achieved notoriety when the former US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced on television from Moscow that he was part of an "unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb" with the intention of causing "mass death and injury."
Despite the hysteria whipped up by Mr Ashcroft, no evidence was ever presented linking Mr Padilla to such a plot. Yesterday's verdict was a rare legal victory for the Bush Administration however. It has seen charges thrown out against virtually all those swept up after the al-Qai'da attacks on America. A federal jury took little more than a day to reach its verdict and Mr Padilla, 36, can now expect to spend the rest of his life in jail.
His lawyers say their client was only a passionate vocal Muslim, concerned about attacks on fellow Muslims in places such as Kosovo and Chechnya. They tried and failed to have charges dismissed on the grounds that he was tortured while languishing in a naval brig in South Carolina for three years. He was only transferred to a civilian jail last year when the Supreme Court threatened to take up his case.
The government's main evidence was an application form it said Mr Padilla filled in under an alias to attend an al-Qai'da training camp in Afghanistan in 2000. The government said Mr Padilla's fingerprint was on the form. There were also FBI surveillance tapes of thousands phone calls he allegedly made between 1993 and 2000.
Anthony Natale, one of Mr Padilla's lawyers said he was never connected to al-Qai'da and had no intention to support terrorism.
"In this case, you will see how in the absence of hard evidence, a suspicion can be fuelled by fear, nourished by prejudice and directed by politics into a criminal prosecution," Mr Natale said.
Mr Padilla's first visit to a Muslim country was to Egypt, in 1998. He went there because he wanted to become an imam, according to Mr. Natale, who said the Bush Administration's charges of a conspiracy to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas was baseless.
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