my dads a terrorist
08-19-2007, 04:59 PM
#134
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Re: my dads a terrorist
sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbmayo0819nbaug19,0,894849.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Mother of convicted terrorist Jose Padilla opens up about son's life
August 19, 2007
Click here to find out more!
The day after a federal jury in Miami convicted her eldest son on terrorism conspiracy charges, Estela Ortega Lebron sat in her Plantation condominium and seethed.
"For five years, this whole nation, the only thing they kept hearing about Jose Padilla is that he's an enemy combatant, he's a dirty bomber, he's with al-Qaida, he's with the Taliban," Lebron said. "They say these things over and over and over again, you know, it's painful for a family. Nobody ever said Jose Padilla is a human being, Jose Padilla is an American citizen, Jose Padilla has a mother, brothers and sisters and kids and nephews."
Lebron, 53, has been media-wary since President Bush declared her son an "enemy combatant" and "a bad guy" in June 2002, but she welcomed me into her home for a two-hour interview on Friday.
She wanted me to understand the things her family has been through. How she was "a little bit scared" in the early days, afraid that somebody might "blow up my home or my car." How she and her son Thomas, who lives in North Lauderdale, both turned to therapy and medication to deal with the stress. How her grandchildren in Puerto Rico have been taunted with cries of "Here comes the bin Laden family."
She told me how a neighbor once confronted her in the laundry room of her building, saying, "Why don't you go back to your country?"
"I said, 'Excuse me?" said Lebron, a native New Yorker. "This is my country."
She has held her ground. She has the same job, the same home, the same phone number. She still holds an open house for neighbors every Thanksgiving and Christmas, baking fresh turkeys.
Lebron wanted to tell me the fuller story of her son. The one she still calls by his childhood nickname, Pucho. The one she described as obedient and caring, even during a troubled youth that saw him jailed as a juvenile gang member in Chicago in the 1980s and as a young adult in South Florida in the early 1990s.
"I know my son's not an angel, don't misunderstand me, but I know he's a good man," said Lebron, 53, who moved to South Florida in 1989. "And I know he's innocent."
She led me into the guest bedroom and pointed to pictures on the wall. There was Jose at age 5, a handsome boy with a toothy smile. There was Jose at age 17, posing in a Chicago Cubs uniform on a mock cover of "Sport" magazine.
"He loved sports," she said. "His idol was Michael Jordan."
She remembers spending $106 on his first pair of Air Jordan sneakers as a teenager. She remembers the bunk bed Jose shared with his younger brother, Thomas, and how Thomas wouldn't go to sleep until Jose, in the top bunk, touched his outstretched hand.
"If I cried, he'd cry with me," Lebron said. "As a boy, he was always quiet, always watching TV. You never think he'd have anything evil in his mind."
The U.S. government painted a far more sinister portrait, saying Padilla trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaida and conspired to possibly detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States. The government called him an "enemy combatant" and threw him into a military brig in Charleston, S.C. He was held without charges for 3 ½ years, not allowed to see his attorneys or mother for the first two.
When a challenge of his "enemy combatant" status headed to the U.S. Supreme Court in late 2005, the government abruptly changed course. Padilla was transferred to federal prison in Miami to await a criminal jury trial alongside two men accused of providing support to overseas Muslim fighters in the 1990s.
The charges against Padilla, now 36, did not include the dirty bomb plot.
After a three-month trial, the jury took two days to find all three men guilty.
Lebron doesn't accept the verdict: "Wherever he went, [the trial] couldn't be fair because everyone's mind was contaminated."
She insists her son would never do anything to harm the United States.
"If I knew Jose was guilty, I'd be suffering but not the way I'm suffering now," Lebron said. " If my son did something wrong and he was trying to kill any American citizen … I'd say, 'He did it, he has to pay for it.' But I could give my life that my son is innocent. I'm positive, positive, positive."
Jose Padilla was born October 18, 1970 in Brooklyn. His father died when he was young.
"I don't want to talk about him," said Lebron.
Lebron has four other children: Kathy, 38, who lives in Puerto Rico; Delma, 34, in New York; Thomas, 31, and Elan, 28, who both live in South Florida.
Lebron moved to Puerto Rico and then Chicago, raising her children as a single mother. She worked for the telephone company in New York and Puerto Rico, then as a switchboard operator at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
She said Jose was a good student, making it to a magnet middle school in Chicago, but that he lost interest by eighth grade. He turned to gang life, a subject she didn't want to talk about. He spent two years in juvenile jail on an aggravated battery charge.
After the family moved to South Florida in 1989, she said Jose took odd jobs and tried to straighten up. Around 1990, she remembers going with him to the Army recruiting center on State Road 7 in Lauderhill. He wanted to enlist.
"He loved the Army," said Lebron, whose uncle was a 30-year U.S. Army officer. "He figured he could join, learn a specialty, get money for his education."
But Lebron said Padilla was rejected because of his criminal past. He found trouble again in 1991, jailed for a road rage shooting incident.
He then converted to Islam, got married and worked at a local Taco Bell. In 1998, he left his wife and moved to Egypt. Lebron said her son explained he wanted to study Islam more intensely. He remarried and started a family, with two young sons in Egypt. He also has a 17-year-old son in Chicago.
The next time she saw Jose was more than six years later, in the Naval brig in Charleston.
In May 2002, a New York defense attorney called Lebron and said her son had been detained at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on May 8 and that he was in federal custody in New York as a material witness in a terrorism investigation.
Lebron said FBI agents visited her and questioned her. A few weeks later, she was subpoenaed and flown to New York to testify before a grand jury. "The grand jury asked me questions about his religion and activities, how did he turn to be a Muslim," said Lebron, a Christian. "I said I didn't agree with it, but he's an adult and that's what he chose."
A few days later, then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft made a dramatic announcement about Padilla's capture and the dirty-bomb plot.
Lebron, a sales consultant for a firm that sells human resources products, was at work. "My daughter-in-law called me and said 'Jose's all over the news. They're saying he's a terrorist,'" Lebron recalled.
She got to see him once in the brig, for one hour, after he had been there for more than two years. She said the visit was monitored and recorded.
"We were allowed contact, so we hugged and started crying," she said. "I said, 'How are you?' He said, 'This whole ordeal is going to be finished soon … I don't want you to cry.'"
She said she saw bits of the video of him in detention, "the part when he has goggles and earmuffs on and had to put his legs through the little slot in his door to get shackled before going to the dentist. I think that was disgusting."
After he was transferred to Miami, she said he told her, "Don't ask me how I was treated [in the brig], because a human being should never be treated the way I was." Lebron said he is still subject to heavy restrictions; she is the only relative allowed to visit.
Lebron said family, friends, co-workers and members of her Hialeah church have sustained her the last five years. She lives with her husband Jose, whom she met at church in 1992 and married in 1993. Their home is decorated with dozens of bald eagle statues and pictures, many blended with the American flag.
"Even with all that happened to my son," she said, "that doesn't stop me from loving my country."
Michael Mayo's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Read him online every weekday at Sun-Sentinel.com/mayoblog. He can be reached at mmayo@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4508.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Mother of convicted terrorist Jose Padilla opens up about son's life
August 19, 2007
Click here to find out more!
The day after a federal jury in Miami convicted her eldest son on terrorism conspiracy charges, Estela Ortega Lebron sat in her Plantation condominium and seethed.
"For five years, this whole nation, the only thing they kept hearing about Jose Padilla is that he's an enemy combatant, he's a dirty bomber, he's with al-Qaida, he's with the Taliban," Lebron said. "They say these things over and over and over again, you know, it's painful for a family. Nobody ever said Jose Padilla is a human being, Jose Padilla is an American citizen, Jose Padilla has a mother, brothers and sisters and kids and nephews."
Lebron, 53, has been media-wary since President Bush declared her son an "enemy combatant" and "a bad guy" in June 2002, but she welcomed me into her home for a two-hour interview on Friday.
She wanted me to understand the things her family has been through. How she was "a little bit scared" in the early days, afraid that somebody might "blow up my home or my car." How she and her son Thomas, who lives in North Lauderdale, both turned to therapy and medication to deal with the stress. How her grandchildren in Puerto Rico have been taunted with cries of "Here comes the bin Laden family."
She told me how a neighbor once confronted her in the laundry room of her building, saying, "Why don't you go back to your country?"
"I said, 'Excuse me?" said Lebron, a native New Yorker. "This is my country."
She has held her ground. She has the same job, the same home, the same phone number. She still holds an open house for neighbors every Thanksgiving and Christmas, baking fresh turkeys.
Lebron wanted to tell me the fuller story of her son. The one she still calls by his childhood nickname, Pucho. The one she described as obedient and caring, even during a troubled youth that saw him jailed as a juvenile gang member in Chicago in the 1980s and as a young adult in South Florida in the early 1990s.
"I know my son's not an angel, don't misunderstand me, but I know he's a good man," said Lebron, 53, who moved to South Florida in 1989. "And I know he's innocent."
She led me into the guest bedroom and pointed to pictures on the wall. There was Jose at age 5, a handsome boy with a toothy smile. There was Jose at age 17, posing in a Chicago Cubs uniform on a mock cover of "Sport" magazine.
"He loved sports," she said. "His idol was Michael Jordan."
She remembers spending $106 on his first pair of Air Jordan sneakers as a teenager. She remembers the bunk bed Jose shared with his younger brother, Thomas, and how Thomas wouldn't go to sleep until Jose, in the top bunk, touched his outstretched hand.
"If I cried, he'd cry with me," Lebron said. "As a boy, he was always quiet, always watching TV. You never think he'd have anything evil in his mind."
The U.S. government painted a far more sinister portrait, saying Padilla trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaida and conspired to possibly detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States. The government called him an "enemy combatant" and threw him into a military brig in Charleston, S.C. He was held without charges for 3 ½ years, not allowed to see his attorneys or mother for the first two.
When a challenge of his "enemy combatant" status headed to the U.S. Supreme Court in late 2005, the government abruptly changed course. Padilla was transferred to federal prison in Miami to await a criminal jury trial alongside two men accused of providing support to overseas Muslim fighters in the 1990s.
The charges against Padilla, now 36, did not include the dirty bomb plot.
After a three-month trial, the jury took two days to find all three men guilty.
Lebron doesn't accept the verdict: "Wherever he went, [the trial] couldn't be fair because everyone's mind was contaminated."
She insists her son would never do anything to harm the United States.
"If I knew Jose was guilty, I'd be suffering but not the way I'm suffering now," Lebron said. " If my son did something wrong and he was trying to kill any American citizen … I'd say, 'He did it, he has to pay for it.' But I could give my life that my son is innocent. I'm positive, positive, positive."
Jose Padilla was born October 18, 1970 in Brooklyn. His father died when he was young.
"I don't want to talk about him," said Lebron.
Lebron has four other children: Kathy, 38, who lives in Puerto Rico; Delma, 34, in New York; Thomas, 31, and Elan, 28, who both live in South Florida.
Lebron moved to Puerto Rico and then Chicago, raising her children as a single mother. She worked for the telephone company in New York and Puerto Rico, then as a switchboard operator at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
She said Jose was a good student, making it to a magnet middle school in Chicago, but that he lost interest by eighth grade. He turned to gang life, a subject she didn't want to talk about. He spent two years in juvenile jail on an aggravated battery charge.
After the family moved to South Florida in 1989, she said Jose took odd jobs and tried to straighten up. Around 1990, she remembers going with him to the Army recruiting center on State Road 7 in Lauderhill. He wanted to enlist.
"He loved the Army," said Lebron, whose uncle was a 30-year U.S. Army officer. "He figured he could join, learn a specialty, get money for his education."
But Lebron said Padilla was rejected because of his criminal past. He found trouble again in 1991, jailed for a road rage shooting incident.
He then converted to Islam, got married and worked at a local Taco Bell. In 1998, he left his wife and moved to Egypt. Lebron said her son explained he wanted to study Islam more intensely. He remarried and started a family, with two young sons in Egypt. He also has a 17-year-old son in Chicago.
The next time she saw Jose was more than six years later, in the Naval brig in Charleston.
In May 2002, a New York defense attorney called Lebron and said her son had been detained at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on May 8 and that he was in federal custody in New York as a material witness in a terrorism investigation.
Lebron said FBI agents visited her and questioned her. A few weeks later, she was subpoenaed and flown to New York to testify before a grand jury. "The grand jury asked me questions about his religion and activities, how did he turn to be a Muslim," said Lebron, a Christian. "I said I didn't agree with it, but he's an adult and that's what he chose."
A few days later, then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft made a dramatic announcement about Padilla's capture and the dirty-bomb plot.
Lebron, a sales consultant for a firm that sells human resources products, was at work. "My daughter-in-law called me and said 'Jose's all over the news. They're saying he's a terrorist,'" Lebron recalled.
She got to see him once in the brig, for one hour, after he had been there for more than two years. She said the visit was monitored and recorded.
"We were allowed contact, so we hugged and started crying," she said. "I said, 'How are you?' He said, 'This whole ordeal is going to be finished soon … I don't want you to cry.'"
She said she saw bits of the video of him in detention, "the part when he has goggles and earmuffs on and had to put his legs through the little slot in his door to get shackled before going to the dentist. I think that was disgusting."
After he was transferred to Miami, she said he told her, "Don't ask me how I was treated [in the brig], because a human being should never be treated the way I was." Lebron said he is still subject to heavy restrictions; she is the only relative allowed to visit.
Lebron said family, friends, co-workers and members of her Hialeah church have sustained her the last five years. She lives with her husband Jose, whom she met at church in 1992 and married in 1993. Their home is decorated with dozens of bald eagle statues and pictures, many blended with the American flag.
"Even with all that happened to my son," she said, "that doesn't stop me from loving my country."
Michael Mayo's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Read him online every weekday at Sun-Sentinel.com/mayoblog. He can be reached at mmayo@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4508.
08-19-2007, 05:01 PM
#135
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 21,479
Re: my dads a terrorist
08-20-2007, 12:06 AM
#137
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
i guess my dad was sentenced to life in prison because it "fell into place" 
http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stori...ry/206013.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stori...ry/206013.html
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Posted on Fri, Aug. 17, 2007
Miami jury convicts Padilla in terror trial
BY JAY WEAVER AND LARRY LEBOWITZ
Jose Padilla, a larger-than-life symbol for the Bush administration's war on terrorism, was found guilty along with two other defendants Thursday on charges of plotting to support Islamic extremists overseas.
It took 12 Miami-Dade jurors just 11 hours to reach their unanimous verdicts, despite a complex body of evidence that included hundreds of FBI phone wiretaps introduced during the three-month federal trial.
Padilla, a former Broward County resident charged with serving as an al Qaeda recruit; Adham Amin Hassoun, a mentor accused of recruiting for jihad; and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a colleague suspected of raising thousands for the cause, were found guilty on all three counts in the indictment. The men, part of a South Florida-based terror cell, will be sentenced Dec. 5 and face up to life in prison.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ordered that Jayyousi, free on bond, surrender immediately to authorities.
''We're all devastated by this verdict,'' Jayyousi's attorney, William Swor, said outside the courthouse.
The jurors -- who once dressed in red, white and blue at trial before the Fourth of July -- declined to comment publicly after the verdicts were read.
`FELL IN PLACE'
But one juror later told The Miami Herald that the panel itself was surprised at how quickly it reached unanimous guilty verdicts.
View an interactive timeline of Padilla's case
''We didn't have anything decided when we went to bed [Wednesday] night -- believe me,'' the juror said. ``But there were a couple of things that we all agreed on [Thursday] involving Padilla, and the rest of it fell in place.''
The juror, who declined to go into details, requested anonymity because of fears of reprisals from radical Islamists. The juror watched the post-verdict TV news, commenting on the media's obsession with Padilla.
''He was just a small pawn in this thing. He was guilty -- believe me. But there were much bigger people involved,'' the juror said by phone, describing Hassoun as ''the East Coast recruiter'' for al Qaeda and Jayyousi as the ``the money man.''
''I understand why they're focusing on Padilla,'' the juror said. ``But why aren't their pictures on TV, too?''
When the verdicts were read just after 2 p.m., reaction in the Miami courtroom was subdued. Padilla sat at the defense table, hunched over, staring blankly, betraying no emotion. Hassoun assumed a similar pose. Jayyousi sat more erect.
Lawyers for Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, told them their ''faith in God'' gave them strength through their ordeal. Padilla's team of attorneys slipped out of the courthouse and did not talk to the media.
The spectators in the packed courtroom included Padilla's mother, Jayyousi's wife and Hassoun's sister. All three women bowed their heads as the verdict was read, showing little emotion, seemingly resigned to the outcome. There had been a feeling in the courtroom that because the jury came back so quickly, guilty verdicts were inevitable.
Rather than hold a traditional press conference with local prosecutors in Miami, the Justice Department seized the opportunity to highlight the triumph by publicizing it from Washington.
''The conviction of Jose Padilla -- an American who provided material support to terrorists and trained for violent jihad -- is a significant victory in our efforts to fight the threat posed by terrorists and their supporters,'' said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has been embroiled in controversy over his leadership at the Justice Department.
''As this trial demonstrated, we will use our authority as prosecutors to dismantle terrorist networks and those who support them in the United States and abroad,'' he said.
Defense attorneys condemned the prosecution as politically motivated, saying the Bush administration was determined to nail Padilla after holding him as an ''enemy combatant'' without charges for more than three years before his indictment in Miami in late 2005. ''We always thought this was a political trial from Day One,'' said Hassoun's attorney, Ken Swartz.
Padilla, dubbed ''the dirty bomber'' by the Bush administration, was the most infamous defendant at trial. As an enemy combatant, Padilla was accused of, but never charged with, scheming to detonate a radiological ''dirty bomb'' on U.S. soil.
The Miami indictment fueled his notoriety by accusing him of becoming an al Qaeda soldier, but the dirty-bomb accusation was dropped.
During closing arguments on Monday, prosecutor Brian Frazier described Padilla as a ''star recruit'' for al Qaeda -- sent to the Middle East in September 1998 by the alleged South Florida support cell headed by Hassoun. Jayyousi, Hassoun's ally in helping embattled Muslims overseas, had never met Padilla before they were all indicted in Miami.
Hassoun, whom Padilla met at a Fort Lauderdale mosque, and Jayyousi were accused of publishing militant propaganda, raising money for ''violent jihad'' in Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya, and recruiting Padilla and other soldiers to take up arms in the name of Islam. They countered it was all for humanitarian relief.
CENTRAL EVIDENCE
Prosecutors built much of their case around Padilla's Mujahedin data form, a recruitment document dated July 24, 2000, that the CIA said was recovered from an al Qaeda safe house after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan in fall 2001.
The application bears many personal details that match Padilla's profile -- his date of birth, educational background and family history. It also mentions he studied in Egypt, attended the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and visited Yemen ``as a way to go through for jihad.''
Although Padilla's Mujahedin form itself appeared to be solid, there was no smoking gun evidence proving he had engaged in jihad with other Islamic radicals.
Still, Padilla's alleged association with al Qaeda seemed to color everything about the case. Defense attorneys said the prosecution played on the fears of jurors with vivid memories of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack -- even though it had no connection to this case.
''This is definitely a post-9/11 prosecution where the government was determined to get a result to send a message to the nation that we're safer,'' Hassoun's attorney, Jeanne Baker, said outside the courthouse. ``We're definitely not safer.''
Posted on Fri, Aug. 17, 2007
Miami jury convicts Padilla in terror trial
BY JAY WEAVER AND LARRY LEBOWITZ
Jose Padilla, a larger-than-life symbol for the Bush administration's war on terrorism, was found guilty along with two other defendants Thursday on charges of plotting to support Islamic extremists overseas.
It took 12 Miami-Dade jurors just 11 hours to reach their unanimous verdicts, despite a complex body of evidence that included hundreds of FBI phone wiretaps introduced during the three-month federal trial.
Padilla, a former Broward County resident charged with serving as an al Qaeda recruit; Adham Amin Hassoun, a mentor accused of recruiting for jihad; and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a colleague suspected of raising thousands for the cause, were found guilty on all three counts in the indictment. The men, part of a South Florida-based terror cell, will be sentenced Dec. 5 and face up to life in prison.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ordered that Jayyousi, free on bond, surrender immediately to authorities.
''We're all devastated by this verdict,'' Jayyousi's attorney, William Swor, said outside the courthouse.
The jurors -- who once dressed in red, white and blue at trial before the Fourth of July -- declined to comment publicly after the verdicts were read.
`FELL IN PLACE'
But one juror later told The Miami Herald that the panel itself was surprised at how quickly it reached unanimous guilty verdicts.
View an interactive timeline of Padilla's case
''We didn't have anything decided when we went to bed [Wednesday] night -- believe me,'' the juror said. ``But there were a couple of things that we all agreed on [Thursday] involving Padilla, and the rest of it fell in place.''
The juror, who declined to go into details, requested anonymity because of fears of reprisals from radical Islamists. The juror watched the post-verdict TV news, commenting on the media's obsession with Padilla.
''He was just a small pawn in this thing. He was guilty -- believe me. But there were much bigger people involved,'' the juror said by phone, describing Hassoun as ''the East Coast recruiter'' for al Qaeda and Jayyousi as the ``the money man.''
''I understand why they're focusing on Padilla,'' the juror said. ``But why aren't their pictures on TV, too?''
When the verdicts were read just after 2 p.m., reaction in the Miami courtroom was subdued. Padilla sat at the defense table, hunched over, staring blankly, betraying no emotion. Hassoun assumed a similar pose. Jayyousi sat more erect.
Lawyers for Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, told them their ''faith in God'' gave them strength through their ordeal. Padilla's team of attorneys slipped out of the courthouse and did not talk to the media.
The spectators in the packed courtroom included Padilla's mother, Jayyousi's wife and Hassoun's sister. All three women bowed their heads as the verdict was read, showing little emotion, seemingly resigned to the outcome. There had been a feeling in the courtroom that because the jury came back so quickly, guilty verdicts were inevitable.
Rather than hold a traditional press conference with local prosecutors in Miami, the Justice Department seized the opportunity to highlight the triumph by publicizing it from Washington.
''The conviction of Jose Padilla -- an American who provided material support to terrorists and trained for violent jihad -- is a significant victory in our efforts to fight the threat posed by terrorists and their supporters,'' said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has been embroiled in controversy over his leadership at the Justice Department.
''As this trial demonstrated, we will use our authority as prosecutors to dismantle terrorist networks and those who support them in the United States and abroad,'' he said.
Defense attorneys condemned the prosecution as politically motivated, saying the Bush administration was determined to nail Padilla after holding him as an ''enemy combatant'' without charges for more than three years before his indictment in Miami in late 2005. ''We always thought this was a political trial from Day One,'' said Hassoun's attorney, Ken Swartz.
Padilla, dubbed ''the dirty bomber'' by the Bush administration, was the most infamous defendant at trial. As an enemy combatant, Padilla was accused of, but never charged with, scheming to detonate a radiological ''dirty bomb'' on U.S. soil.
The Miami indictment fueled his notoriety by accusing him of becoming an al Qaeda soldier, but the dirty-bomb accusation was dropped.
During closing arguments on Monday, prosecutor Brian Frazier described Padilla as a ''star recruit'' for al Qaeda -- sent to the Middle East in September 1998 by the alleged South Florida support cell headed by Hassoun. Jayyousi, Hassoun's ally in helping embattled Muslims overseas, had never met Padilla before they were all indicted in Miami.
Hassoun, whom Padilla met at a Fort Lauderdale mosque, and Jayyousi were accused of publishing militant propaganda, raising money for ''violent jihad'' in Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya, and recruiting Padilla and other soldiers to take up arms in the name of Islam. They countered it was all for humanitarian relief.
CENTRAL EVIDENCE
Prosecutors built much of their case around Padilla's Mujahedin data form, a recruitment document dated July 24, 2000, that the CIA said was recovered from an al Qaeda safe house after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan in fall 2001.
The application bears many personal details that match Padilla's profile -- his date of birth, educational background and family history. It also mentions he studied in Egypt, attended the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and visited Yemen ``as a way to go through for jihad.''
Although Padilla's Mujahedin form itself appeared to be solid, there was no smoking gun evidence proving he had engaged in jihad with other Islamic radicals.
Still, Padilla's alleged association with al Qaeda seemed to color everything about the case. Defense attorneys said the prosecution played on the fears of jurors with vivid memories of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack -- even though it had no connection to this case.
''This is definitely a post-9/11 prosecution where the government was determined to get a result to send a message to the nation that we're safer,'' Hassoun's attorney, Jeanne Baker, said outside the courthouse. ``We're definitely not safer.''
08-20-2007, 01:26 AM
#139
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 5,708
Re: my dads a terrorist
Originally Posted by buk9tp
a jurist just told a national news paper that she had her mind made up before deliberations!!! that ***** illegal! grounds for mistrial!!! she cites strong evidence.. bwahaahah is that the application with different handwriting and prints on only the front page and back cover? wtf kind of bullshit is this dude
i guarentee as more jurors do interviews this whole thing will explode
i guarentee as more jurors do interviews this whole thing will explode
08-20-2007, 07:04 AM
#140
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
Originally Posted by BoosTedZSix
she said she had all but made up her mind. I suppose you can take it the way you took it. Or she said she have had all info but hadn't made up her mind.
