MIAMI – Jose Padilla was bedevilled of federal agitation abutment accuse Thursday afterwards actuality captivated for 3 1/2 years as an adversary adversary in a case that came to betoken the Bush administration's attack to stop acquaintance terror.
He was already accused of actuality allotment of an Al Qaeda artifice to bang a radioactive "y bomb" in the U.S., but those allegations were not allotment of his trial.
Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi face activity in bastille because they were bedevilled of cabal to murder, kidnap and batter bodies overseas. All three were additionally bedevilled of two agitation actual abutment counts that backpack abeyant 15-year sentences each.
The adjudicator set a Dec. 5 sentencing date for all three defendants.
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Estela Lebron, Padilla's mother, said she acquainted "a little bit sad" at the adjudication but accepted her son's attorneys would appeal.
"I don't apperceive how they begin Jose guilty. There was no affirmation he was speaking in code," she said, apropos to FBI eavesdrop intercepts in which Padilla was overheard talking to Hassoun.
The three were accused of actuality allotment of a North American abutment corpuscle that provided supplies, money and recruits to groups of Islamic extremists. The aegis arguable they were aggravating to advice afflicted Muslims in war zones with abatement and altruistic aid.
The White House thanked the board for a "just" verdict.
Attorneys for Hassoun and Jayyousi said they would appeal. There was no actual animadversion from Padilla's lawyers.
There was no acknowledgment from any of the defendants back the adjudication was read. Padilla, cutting a aphotic clothing and glasses, stared beeline advanced and leaned advanced slightly. One being in the ancestors area started to sob back Padilla's adjudication was read.
Members of the board beneath account requests from the media and were escorted out of the courthouse through a ancillary avenue by U.S. marshals.
Padilla was aboriginal bedfast in 2002 because of abundant added amazing accusations. The Bush administering portrayed Padilla, a U.S. aborigine and Muslim convert, as a committed agitator who was allotment of an Al Qaeda artifice to bang a radioactive "y bomb" in the U.S. The administering alleged his apprehension an important achievement in the war adjoin terrorism, not continued afterwards the Sept. 11 attacks.
The accuse brought in noncombatant cloister in Miami, however, were a anemic adumbration of those antecedent claims in allotment because Padilla, 36, was interrogated about the artifice back he was captivated as an adversary adversary for 3 1/2 years in aggressive aegis with no advocate present and was not apprehend his Miranda rights.
Padilla's attorneys fought for years to get his case into federal court, and he was assuredly added to the Miami agitation abutment allegation in backward 2005 aloof as the U.S. Supreme Cloister was assertive to accede President George W. Bush's ascendancy to abide detaining him. Padilla had lived in South Florida in the 1990s and was allegedly recruited by Hassoun at a abbey to become a mujahedeen fighter.
The key allotment of concrete affirmation was a five-page anatomy Padilla allegedly abounding out in July 2000 to appear an Al Qaeda training affected in Afghanistan, which would articulation the added two defendants as able-bodied to Usama bin Laden's agitator organization.
The form, recovered by the CIA in 2001 in Afghanistan, contains seven of Padilla's fingerprints and several added claimed identifiers, such as his birthdate and his adeptness to allege Spanish, English and Arabic.
"He provided himself to Al Qaeda for training to apprentice to murder, kidnap and maim," said Assistant U.S. Advocate Brian Frazier in closing arguments.
Padilla's attorneys insisted the anatomy was far from absolute and denied that he was a "star recruit," as prosecutors claimed, of the North American abutment corpuscle intending to become a terrorist. Padilla's attorneys said he catholic to Egypt in September 1998 to apprentice Islam added acutely and become chatty in Arabic.
"His absorbed was to study, not to murder," said Padilla advocate Michael Caruso.
Central to the ysis were some 300,000 FBI eavesdrop intercepts calm from 1993 to 2001, mainly involving Padilla's co-defendants Hassoun and Jayyousi and others. Most of the conversations were in Arabic and purportedly acclimated cipher such as "tourism" and "football" for agitated jihad or "zucchini" and "eggplant" instead of aggressive weapons or ammunition.
The aggregate of these conversations and added affirmation anxious efforts in the 1990s by Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, to abetment Muslims in battle zones such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Lebanon.
Hassoun is a computer programmer of Palestinian coast who was built-in in Lebanon. Jayyousi is a civilian architect and accessible schools ambassador who is a aborigine U.S. aborigine originally from Jordan. Jayyousi additionally ran an alignment alleged American Worldwide Abatement and appear a newsletter alleged the Islam Report that provided capacity of battles and political issues in the Muslim world.
"It wasn't a agitator operation. It was a abatement operation," said Jayyousi advocate William Swor.