U.S. wants life in prison for 3 in terrorism case

Source: Reuters
By Jane Sutton

MIAMI, Jan 8 (Reuters) - U.S. former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla and two other men convicted last year of conspiring to aid terrorists abroad returned to a Miami court on Tuesday for a hearing to decide whether they will spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

The hearing was scheduled to last several days and began with a long list of defense challenges to a government sentencing report recommending life in prison for all three.

Padilla, a U.S. convert to Islam once accused by the Bush administration of plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack, was convicted in August of unrelated charges he offered his services to al Qaeda.

Jurors convicted him and co-defendants Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi on charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons abroad, conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism, and providing material support for terrorism.

The three Muslim men were accused of forming a Florida support cell that provided money and recruits for Islamist radicals seeking to establish Taliban-style governments in countries where Muslims lived.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke for maximum prison terms under a "terrorism enhancement" provision that increases the penalty if a crime is committed with the aim of influencing government conduct.

Defense lawyers disputed the sentencing report's historic description of the jihadist movement that arose in the 1980s, and denied that the defendants aided mujahideen fighters or terrorist groups that advocated the violent overthrow of "infidel governments."

They contend Padilla moved to the Middle East in 1998 to study Arabic and Islam in Egypt, not to train as a killer at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. They also contend Hassoun and Jayyousi supported groups that aided Muslim victims of atrocities in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s.

'JIHAD' AGAINST THE SOVIETS

One of Hassoun's lawyers, Kenneth Swartz, cited events depicted in the popular movie "Charlie Wilson's War" as evidence that aid to Muslim guerrillas is not synonymous with aiding terrorism. The movie portrays a U.S. congressman's covert efforts to fund and arm the mujahideen fighters who drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1989.

"Jihad was not a bad word in our society back then," Swartz said.

Prosecutors said the jury had already settled those issues by convicting the trio, and accused defense lawyers of trying to undercut the jury's decision.

The Bush administration praised the conviction of the three men as "a vivid reminder of the serious threat that we face" from terrorism. But the case has also tested the limits of presidential authority in the fight against terrorism.

Padilla, 37, was arrested in Chicago upon returning from Egypt in 2002 and President George W. Bush ordered him held in a military prison as an "enemy combatant."

Faced with a Supreme Court challenge to Bush's authority to jail someone without charge, the government added Padilla to an existing terrorism support case in Miami and turned him over to civilian authorities in 2006.

Padilla never was charged in any bomb plot. He was implicated by two suspected al Qaeda operatives now held without charge at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

One claimed he falsely implicated Padilla under torture at a Moroccan prison. The CIA destroyed interrogation videotapes of the other, Abu Zubaydah, whom news reports said was subjected to a form of simulated drowning known as "waterboarding" and widely condemned as torture.

Padilla's lawyers have asked the judge to order the government to turn over any remaining evidence from those interrogations in hopes of overturning his conviction.

Padilla and Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian computer programmer, have been jailed for more than five years. Jayyousi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan, had been out on bond during the trial but was jailed upon conviction. (Editing by Tom Brown and Mohammad Zargham)