my dads a terrorist
08-20-2007, 03:26 PM
#141
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
VDARE.COM - http://vdare.com/roberts/070819_padilla.htm
August 19, 2007
Padilla Jury Opens Pandora’s Box
By Paul Craig Roberts
Jose Padilla’s conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice (sic) Department’s theory that a US citizen can be convicted, not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department’s theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora’s Box.
Anglo-American law is a human achievement 800 years in the making. Over centuries law was transformed from a weapon in the hands of government into a shield of the people from unaccountable power. The Padilla Jury’s verdict turned law back into a weapon.
The jury, of course, had no idea of what was at stake. It was a patriotic jury that appeared in court with one row of jurors dressed in red, one in white, and one in blue [Jury Convicts Jose Padilla of Terror Charges, By Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, August 17, 2007] It was a jury primed to be psychologically and emotionally manipulated by federal prosecutors desperate for a conviction for which there was little, if any, supporting evidence. For the jury, patriotism required that they strike a blow for America against terrorism. No member of this jury was going to return home to accusations of letting off a person who has been portrayed as a terrorist in the US media for five years.
The "evidence" against Padilla consists of three items: (1) seven intercepted telephone conversations, (2) a 10-year old non-relevant video of Osama bin Laden, and (3) an alleged application to a mujahideen (not terrorist) training camp with Padilla’s fingerprints. We will examine each in turn.
The International Herald Tribune and Associated Press reported in detail on the telephone intercepts (June 19, 2007):
"Accused al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla was never overheard using purported code words for violent jihad in intercepted telephone conversations and spoke often about his difficulties in learning Arabic while studying in Egypt, the lead FBI case agent testified Tuesday. The questioning of FBI Agent James T. Kavanaugh by Padilla attorney Michael Caruso focused on seven intercepted telephone calls on which Padilla’s voice is heard mostly talking about his marriage and his studies but never about Islamic extremism. . . . Caruso asked Kavanaugh if Padilla ever was heard using what prosecutors say were code words for violent jihad . . . ‘No, he does not,’ Kavanaugh replied. . . . Caruso asked Kavanaugh if Padilla was ever overheard discussing jihad training. ‘No jihad training that I’ve seen,’ Kavanaugh said. . . . ‘He’s not referring to anything here but studying Arabic, correct? Study means study, right?’ Caruso asked. ‘That’s what they’re talking about,’ Kavanaugh testified." [ FBI agent says Padilla doesn't use jihad code on tapes, Associated Press, June 19, 2007]
Despite the FBI’s testimony that the intercepted telephone messages contained no incriminating evidence, the "patriotic" jury accepted the federal prosecutor’s unsupported accusation that there were hidden code words in the message indicating that Padilla was a terrorist. After all, who but a terrorist would want to learn Arabic?
The video of bin Laden had no relevance whatsoever to the charges in the case. The video is 10-years old and makes no reference to any of the defendants. Moreover, none of the defendants were accused of ever being in contact with bin Laden. The only purpose of the video was to arouse in jurors fear, anger, and disturbing memories associated with September 11, 2001. The fact that the judge let prosecutors sway a fearful and vengeful patriotic jury with emotion and passion rather than evidence is obviously grounds for appeal.
Whoriskey reports that in their closing arguments prosecutors mentioned al-Qaeda more than 100 times and urged jurors to think of al-Qaeda and groups alleged to be affiliated with it as an international murder conspiracy. Padilla "trained to kill,"’ Assistant US Attorney Brian Frazier misinformed the jury in his closing statement.
Who Padilla wished to kill was never identified, but according to the prosecutors he had been wanting to kill persons unknown since 1998. Padilla was convicted for harboring alleged intentions, not for committing any acts. Indeed, no harmful acts are charged to Padilla. The incompetent jury fell for the prosecutors’ wild tale of a murder conspiracy many years old that had no results.
As Andrew Cohen put it, Padilla and the two co-defendants were convicted on the charge of "terrorist-wannabes" on the basis of "evidence that federal authorities did not believe amounted to a crime when it was gathered back before 2001." Cohen concludes: "it’s further proof that if you can convince an American jury that a man in the dock had anything to do with al-Qaeda, you can pretty much bank on a conviction no matter how tenuous the evidence" (washingtonpost.com, August 16, 2007).]
The training camp application form is as suspect as any evidence can be. Moreover, the prosecution had no evidence that Padilla actually attended such a camp. Padilla was held illegally for 3.5 years and tortured. At any time during his illegal detention and torture, Padilla could have been handed a form, thus tainting it with his fingerprints.
Amy Goodman, the forensic psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty, the Christian Science Monitor and others have described how US interrogators abused Padilla and destroyed his mind. To expect a person as badly tortured and abused as Padilla to retain the wits not to touch a piece of paper handed to him, or forced into his hands, is unreasonable.[ How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla, By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! August 17, 2007. ]
When Padilla was arrested five years ago in 2002, the US government charged that he was about to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city that would kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans. The story was a total lie, a fabrication designed to keep the fear level high after 9/11 in order to keep support for the Bush regime’s wars and domestic police state. None of the charges on which Padilla was illegally held, during those years before the US Supreme Court intervened and ordered the Bush regime to release Padilla or bring him to trial, were part of the charges on which Padilla was tried.
There is little doubt that Padilla’s conviction, and probably also the convictions of the two co-defendants, is a terrible injustice. But the damage done goes far beyond the damage to the defendants. What the red, white, and blue "Padilla Jury" has done is to overthrow the US Constitution and give us the rule of men.
The US Constitution and Anglo-American legal tradition prevent indictments, much less convictions, based on a prosecutor’s theory that a person wanted to commit a crime in the past or might want to in the future. Padilla has harmed no one. There is no evidence that he made an agreement with any party to harm anyone whether for money or ideology or any reason. The FBI testified that the telephone calls were innocuous. The bin Laden video was evidence of nothing pertaining to the defendants. The piece of paper, alleged to be a personnel form recovered from an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan is nothing but a piece of paper and an assertion.
As Lawrence Stratton and I demonstrated in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), the protective features of law had been seriously eroded prior to the Bush regime’s assault on civil liberty in the name of "the war on terror." The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights rest on Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. Blackstone explained law as the protective principles against tyranny--habeas corpus, due process, attorney-client privilege, no crime without intent, no retroactive law, no self-incrimination.
Jeremy Bentham claimed that these protective principles were outmoded in a democracy in which the people controlled the government and no longer had reasons to fear it. The problem with Blackstone’s "Rights of Englishmen," Bentham said, is that these civil liberties needlessly limit the government’s power and, thus, its ability to protect citizens from crime. Bentham wanted to preempt criminal acts by arresting those likely to commit crimes in advance, before the budding criminals entered into a life of crime. Bentham, like the Bush regime, the "Padilla Jury," and the Republican Federalist Society, did not understand that when law becomes a weapon, liberty dies regardless of the form of government. If they do understand, they prefer unaccountable government power to individual liberty.
The incompetent "Padilla Jury" has done Americans and their liberty far more damage than will ever be done by terrorists, other than those in our criminal justice (sic) system who now wield the powers that Bentham wanted to give them.
The Padilla case was the way the Bush Justice (sic) Department implemented its strategy for taking away the legal principles that protect American citizens. Padilla is an American citizen. He was denied habeas corpus and his rights to an attorney and due process. He was tortured in an attempt to coerce him into self-incrimination. In treating Padilla in these ways, the US Department of Justice (sic) violated both the US Constitution and federal law. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Justice (sic) Department committed far more crimes than did Padilla.
By the time the Supreme Court finally intervened, Padilla was universally known as the demonized "dirty bomber," an "enemy combatant" who was arrested before he could set off a radioactive bomb in a US city. The Injustice Department could now simultaneously convict Padilla and enshrine Benthamite law simply by appealing to fear and patriotism. And that is what happened.
Under Benthamite law, the individual has no rights. The new calculus is "the greatest good for the greatest number" as determined by the wielders of power. On the basis of this new law, not written by Congress but invented by the Injustice Department and made precedent by the "Padilla Jury" verdict, the US can lock up people based on the percentage of crime committed by their race, gender, income class, or ethnic group.
Under Benthamite law, people can be arrested and prosecuted for thought crimes. Under Benthamite law, it is the government that protects the people, not the Constitution and Bill of Rights that protect the individual. Benthamite law makes "advocacy speech," for example, a call for the overthrow of the US government, upheld in the 1969 Supreme Court decision, Brandenburg v. Ohio, a serious federal crime.
The "Padilla Jury" has opened Pandora’s Box. Unless the conviction is overturned on appeal, American liberty died in the "Padilla Jury’s" verdict.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
August 19, 2007
Padilla Jury Opens Pandora’s Box
By Paul Craig Roberts
Jose Padilla’s conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice (sic) Department’s theory that a US citizen can be convicted, not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department’s theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora’s Box.
Anglo-American law is a human achievement 800 years in the making. Over centuries law was transformed from a weapon in the hands of government into a shield of the people from unaccountable power. The Padilla Jury’s verdict turned law back into a weapon.
The jury, of course, had no idea of what was at stake. It was a patriotic jury that appeared in court with one row of jurors dressed in red, one in white, and one in blue [Jury Convicts Jose Padilla of Terror Charges, By Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, August 17, 2007] It was a jury primed to be psychologically and emotionally manipulated by federal prosecutors desperate for a conviction for which there was little, if any, supporting evidence. For the jury, patriotism required that they strike a blow for America against terrorism. No member of this jury was going to return home to accusations of letting off a person who has been portrayed as a terrorist in the US media for five years.
The "evidence" against Padilla consists of three items: (1) seven intercepted telephone conversations, (2) a 10-year old non-relevant video of Osama bin Laden, and (3) an alleged application to a mujahideen (not terrorist) training camp with Padilla’s fingerprints. We will examine each in turn.
The International Herald Tribune and Associated Press reported in detail on the telephone intercepts (June 19, 2007):
"Accused al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla was never overheard using purported code words for violent jihad in intercepted telephone conversations and spoke often about his difficulties in learning Arabic while studying in Egypt, the lead FBI case agent testified Tuesday. The questioning of FBI Agent James T. Kavanaugh by Padilla attorney Michael Caruso focused on seven intercepted telephone calls on which Padilla’s voice is heard mostly talking about his marriage and his studies but never about Islamic extremism. . . . Caruso asked Kavanaugh if Padilla ever was heard using what prosecutors say were code words for violent jihad . . . ‘No, he does not,’ Kavanaugh replied. . . . Caruso asked Kavanaugh if Padilla was ever overheard discussing jihad training. ‘No jihad training that I’ve seen,’ Kavanaugh said. . . . ‘He’s not referring to anything here but studying Arabic, correct? Study means study, right?’ Caruso asked. ‘That’s what they’re talking about,’ Kavanaugh testified." [ FBI agent says Padilla doesn't use jihad code on tapes, Associated Press, June 19, 2007]
Despite the FBI’s testimony that the intercepted telephone messages contained no incriminating evidence, the "patriotic" jury accepted the federal prosecutor’s unsupported accusation that there were hidden code words in the message indicating that Padilla was a terrorist. After all, who but a terrorist would want to learn Arabic?
The video of bin Laden had no relevance whatsoever to the charges in the case. The video is 10-years old and makes no reference to any of the defendants. Moreover, none of the defendants were accused of ever being in contact with bin Laden. The only purpose of the video was to arouse in jurors fear, anger, and disturbing memories associated with September 11, 2001. The fact that the judge let prosecutors sway a fearful and vengeful patriotic jury with emotion and passion rather than evidence is obviously grounds for appeal.
Whoriskey reports that in their closing arguments prosecutors mentioned al-Qaeda more than 100 times and urged jurors to think of al-Qaeda and groups alleged to be affiliated with it as an international murder conspiracy. Padilla "trained to kill,"’ Assistant US Attorney Brian Frazier misinformed the jury in his closing statement.
Who Padilla wished to kill was never identified, but according to the prosecutors he had been wanting to kill persons unknown since 1998. Padilla was convicted for harboring alleged intentions, not for committing any acts. Indeed, no harmful acts are charged to Padilla. The incompetent jury fell for the prosecutors’ wild tale of a murder conspiracy many years old that had no results.
As Andrew Cohen put it, Padilla and the two co-defendants were convicted on the charge of "terrorist-wannabes" on the basis of "evidence that federal authorities did not believe amounted to a crime when it was gathered back before 2001." Cohen concludes: "it’s further proof that if you can convince an American jury that a man in the dock had anything to do with al-Qaeda, you can pretty much bank on a conviction no matter how tenuous the evidence" (washingtonpost.com, August 16, 2007).]
The training camp application form is as suspect as any evidence can be. Moreover, the prosecution had no evidence that Padilla actually attended such a camp. Padilla was held illegally for 3.5 years and tortured. At any time during his illegal detention and torture, Padilla could have been handed a form, thus tainting it with his fingerprints.
Amy Goodman, the forensic psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty, the Christian Science Monitor and others have described how US interrogators abused Padilla and destroyed his mind. To expect a person as badly tortured and abused as Padilla to retain the wits not to touch a piece of paper handed to him, or forced into his hands, is unreasonable.[ How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla, By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! August 17, 2007. ]
When Padilla was arrested five years ago in 2002, the US government charged that he was about to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city that would kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans. The story was a total lie, a fabrication designed to keep the fear level high after 9/11 in order to keep support for the Bush regime’s wars and domestic police state. None of the charges on which Padilla was illegally held, during those years before the US Supreme Court intervened and ordered the Bush regime to release Padilla or bring him to trial, were part of the charges on which Padilla was tried.
There is little doubt that Padilla’s conviction, and probably also the convictions of the two co-defendants, is a terrible injustice. But the damage done goes far beyond the damage to the defendants. What the red, white, and blue "Padilla Jury" has done is to overthrow the US Constitution and give us the rule of men.
The US Constitution and Anglo-American legal tradition prevent indictments, much less convictions, based on a prosecutor’s theory that a person wanted to commit a crime in the past or might want to in the future. Padilla has harmed no one. There is no evidence that he made an agreement with any party to harm anyone whether for money or ideology or any reason. The FBI testified that the telephone calls were innocuous. The bin Laden video was evidence of nothing pertaining to the defendants. The piece of paper, alleged to be a personnel form recovered from an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan is nothing but a piece of paper and an assertion.
As Lawrence Stratton and I demonstrated in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), the protective features of law had been seriously eroded prior to the Bush regime’s assault on civil liberty in the name of "the war on terror." The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights rest on Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. Blackstone explained law as the protective principles against tyranny--habeas corpus, due process, attorney-client privilege, no crime without intent, no retroactive law, no self-incrimination.
Jeremy Bentham claimed that these protective principles were outmoded in a democracy in which the people controlled the government and no longer had reasons to fear it. The problem with Blackstone’s "Rights of Englishmen," Bentham said, is that these civil liberties needlessly limit the government’s power and, thus, its ability to protect citizens from crime. Bentham wanted to preempt criminal acts by arresting those likely to commit crimes in advance, before the budding criminals entered into a life of crime. Bentham, like the Bush regime, the "Padilla Jury," and the Republican Federalist Society, did not understand that when law becomes a weapon, liberty dies regardless of the form of government. If they do understand, they prefer unaccountable government power to individual liberty.
The incompetent "Padilla Jury" has done Americans and their liberty far more damage than will ever be done by terrorists, other than those in our criminal justice (sic) system who now wield the powers that Bentham wanted to give them.
The Padilla case was the way the Bush Justice (sic) Department implemented its strategy for taking away the legal principles that protect American citizens. Padilla is an American citizen. He was denied habeas corpus and his rights to an attorney and due process. He was tortured in an attempt to coerce him into self-incrimination. In treating Padilla in these ways, the US Department of Justice (sic) violated both the US Constitution and federal law. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Justice (sic) Department committed far more crimes than did Padilla.
By the time the Supreme Court finally intervened, Padilla was universally known as the demonized "dirty bomber," an "enemy combatant" who was arrested before he could set off a radioactive bomb in a US city. The Injustice Department could now simultaneously convict Padilla and enshrine Benthamite law simply by appealing to fear and patriotism. And that is what happened.
Under Benthamite law, the individual has no rights. The new calculus is "the greatest good for the greatest number" as determined by the wielders of power. On the basis of this new law, not written by Congress but invented by the Injustice Department and made precedent by the "Padilla Jury" verdict, the US can lock up people based on the percentage of crime committed by their race, gender, income class, or ethnic group.
Under Benthamite law, people can be arrested and prosecuted for thought crimes. Under Benthamite law, it is the government that protects the people, not the Constitution and Bill of Rights that protect the individual. Benthamite law makes "advocacy speech," for example, a call for the overthrow of the US government, upheld in the 1969 Supreme Court decision, Brandenburg v. Ohio, a serious federal crime.
The "Padilla Jury" has opened Pandora’s Box. Unless the conviction is overturned on appeal, American liberty died in the "Padilla Jury’s" verdict.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
08-20-2007, 04:24 PM
#143
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
Originally Posted by random-strike
conspiring to commit a CRIME. has always been a crime. last time i checked
what CRIME did he conspire to commit?
there is not one instance where my dad said or implied harm or death or fighting or hurting of anyone
have you read the indictment? its accusing someone of stealing but not saying what he stole or when he stole it or where he stole it from accusing someone of killing without saying who what where why how or anything
there is no crime commited or implied no evidence weak or strong
08-20-2007, 04:24 PM
#144
0.0 BAR
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 0
Re: my dads a terrorist
Originally Posted by buk9tp
i like capitalizing words to
what CRIME did he conspire to commit?
there is not one instance where my dad said or implied harm or death or fighting or hurting of anyone
have you read the indictment? its accusing someone of stealing but not saying what he stole or when he stole it or where he stole it from accusing someone of killing without saying who what where why how or anything
there is no crime commited or implied no evidence weak or strong
what CRIME did he conspire to commit?
there is not one instance where my dad said or implied harm or death or fighting or hurting of anyone
have you read the indictment? its accusing someone of stealing but not saying what he stole or when he stole it or where he stole it from accusing someone of killing without saying who what where why how or anything
there is no crime commited or implied no evidence weak or strong
you dad apparently commited a crime by funneling money terrorists
08-20-2007, 04:36 PM
#145
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
Originally Posted by random-strike
i was referring to padilla.
you dad apparently commited a crime by funneling money terrorists
you dad apparently commited a crime by funneling money terrorists
when you say funneling money to terrorists you think alqaeda, anti us, killing us soldiers, 9/11
the supplies/money my dad sent in the 90s was sent to chechnya, a supposide rouge state in russia which isnt the case cause they didnt declare independence till te ussr broke up and before russia claimed itself russia
first off before i continue. let me be clear there is NO evidence that anything my dad sent over there made it into the hands of fighters.. on the contrary there is a hospital that they built still intact, and the video of the warehouse in new jersey shows all the supplies..
but at the time, the us was anti russia and the us gov itself was funneling money and weapons to both the chechens and the afganis to help em fight the russians.. the chechens at the time were seen as freedom fighters, it wasnt untill 2003 that chechens were deemed terrorists.. read this article
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...erl-183746.htm
my dad never was against the us.. or any us ally.. never harmed the us or any us ally he actually helped the us on navy ships and built us bases in egypt... the prosecutor didnt even know of my dads navy service or his helping build us bases in egypt lol
the only thing bringing alqaeda into this case is a supposid application padila filled out that has different handwriting.. with only prints on the front page and back cover indicating it was only handed to padilla.. but no prints anywhere on the other 5 pages fronnts or backs..
further more the handwriting was different...
the only thing linking my dad to padillla was hassoun.. my dads friend. and thats where it ends but my dad never heard of knew of or even met either hassoun or padilla my dads never even been to florida before the trial.. lol
08-20-2007, 04:41 PM
#146
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
and again everything im saying isnt insider information or because hes my dad
everything im saying is in the indictment everthing im saying is in the news everything im saying is in submitted evidence if this ------- trial wasnt closed to cameras i guarentee u alot more people would have raised hell
the prosecutor nearly ---- his pants when one of the lawyers wanted to add arrows to sh0w which way the finger prints were pointing which makes it 100% clear that he onlly held the form
not to mention the fact that there were 10 other prints all over the inside of the form and other pages clear prints.. no smudged prints or prints that could have been padillas
everything im saying is in the indictment everthing im saying is in the news everything im saying is in submitted evidence if this ------- trial wasnt closed to cameras i guarentee u alot more people would have raised hell
the prosecutor nearly ---- his pants when one of the lawyers wanted to add arrows to sh0w which way the finger prints were pointing which makes it 100% clear that he onlly held the form
not to mention the fact that there were 10 other prints all over the inside of the form and other pages clear prints.. no smudged prints or prints that could have been padillas
08-20-2007, 08:32 PM
#148
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
Originally Posted by fork
I thought Chechyn rebel = muslim terrorist who did that thing where you kill other people because of their religion, ummmm genocide. correct me if I'm wrong of course
russia = cut throat company that doesnt give a ---- about its people. does asssaniations and imprisonments all the time.. like the former president of chechnya assasinated in qatar.. and the former kgb agent who they poisoned and now they wont extradite the dude who killed em to the uk..
checnya is a small *** country and russia wont give it its independence for no god damn reason
they installed a puppet government and lured out the "rebels" for peace talks and gunned them down before
meh
08-24-2007, 03:45 PM
#149
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,282
Re: my dads a terrorist
http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stori...ry/213540.html
Phone call fateful in Padilla conviction
BY JAY WEAVER
After a long summer trial in Miami, the 12 jurors in the Jose Padilla terror case were convinced that Padilla's two codefendants were guilty of conspiring to support Islamic terrorists overseas.
Padilla's guilt wasn't as clear-cut. Despite prosecutors' portrait of him as a ''star recruit'' for al Qaeda, jurors viewed the former Broward County resident as a ''pawn'' in the international terror network.
But on the second day of deliberations, the federal jury zeroed in on an 18-page transcript of a 1997 phone conversation between Padilla and his mentor, who he met at a Fort Lauderdale mosque. That single call sealed Padilla's guilt as a jihad recruit, jurors told The Miami Herald.
The July 28, 1997, conversation, taped by the FBI, made it clear that Padilla had joined the South Florida-based terror conspiracy while he was still in the United States.
''We had such a hard time with Padilla,'' said one juror, who did not want to be identified because of fears of reprisals. ``But what we needed [to convict] was there. When we read the transcript of that phone call, it was like a light went on for all of us.''
The jurors saw the transcript as an essential piece of evidence because it proved that Padilla had become part of the local terrorism support cell in the United States 14 months before his 1998 trip to the Middle East.
Legally, the jurors had to conclude that Padilla participated in the conspiracy before his departure for Egypt to find him guilty of plotting to become a recruit for ''violent jihad'' abroad.
''That was our main doubt,'' said a second juror, who asked that his name not be used for his protection. ``We wanted to make sure we were linking him to the conspiracy in the United States.''
The trial, which began in mid-May, ended with surprising speed last week, with just 11 hours of deliberation. The jurors convicted Padilla; his recruiter, Adham Amin Hassoun, of Sunrise; and Hassoun's colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, formerly of Detroit, on three terror-related charges, including conspiracy to murder in jihad conflicts abroad. None took the witness stand.
The three men -- whose convictions were trumpeted by the Bush administration as a ''significant victory'' against homegrown terror threats -- face up to life in prison at their sentencings Dec. 5.
Only two jurors have spoken to The Miami Herald about deliberations. The others either declined comment, did not return calls or could not be reached.
The two jurors said that their colleagues -- despite a few heated moments -- got along pretty well. On the first day of deliberations, they organized hundreds of FBI transcripts of wiretapped phone conversations and other evidence.
They said the jury had no trouble finding Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, guilty of recruiting jihad soldiers and raising money for Muslim fighters in hot zones such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya during the 1990s. At trial, their defense was that the support was for humanitarian relief.
''Hassoun was easy for us,'' said the first juror. ``He was a talker. He was arrogant.''
''Jayyousi did a lot of good things for Muslim refugees and orphans on the one hand, but he also did a lot of bad things that we don't allow in this country,'' the same juror added.
Both jurors noted that Jayyousi received a 1994 fax from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden about a new public relations office in London.
But Padilla, 36, a Muslim convert, was seen by jurors as a bit player in the terror-support scheme. He presented a stumbling block for jurors.
Overall, the two jurors told The Miami Herald there wasn't a plump body of evidence to convict Padilla.
They said the panel wasn't influenced by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, nor did jurors have any knowledge of Padilla's history as a former ``enemy combatant.''
Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was held for more than three years without charges by the U.S. armed forces before a federal grand jury indicted him in Miami in late 2005.
At Padilla's trial, prosecutors did introduce compelling evidence of his Mujahedin application, dated July 24, 2000. It was recovered by the CIA from an alleged al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. His fingerprints were on the front and back of the five-page form in Arabic, a government expert testified.
But prosecutors presented no direct evidence that placed Padilla at the military-style camp in Afghanistan. Moreover, he was heard on only seven of 126 FBI-recorded phone calls entered into evidence at trial.
On the witness stand, FBI case agent John T. Kavanaugh testified about the handful of phone calls involving Padilla, focusing on the one made at 9:22 p.m. on July 28, 1997. Federal agents had a wiretap on Hassoun's home phone in Sunrise.
In the call, Padilla spoke to his Broward mentor, Hassoun, about learning ''discipline'' because ''over there'' a younger amir, or commander, might be in charge.
Hassoun then asked Padilla, ``You're ready, right?''
Padilla responded: ``God willing, brother. It's gonna happen soon.''
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier asked the agent what Padilla meant by ''over there'' in his decade-old conversation with Hassoun.
''A jihad area. That is what he is referring to,'' Kavanaugh testified.
The prosecutor then asked the agent what Padilla and Hassoun were talking about when Hassoun asked whether he was ''ready'' and Padilla answered ``it's gonna happen soon.''
Kavanaugh testified: ``Mr. Padilla's participation in going overseas to a jihad.''
The prosecutor further asked the agent what Padilla meant when he said later in the same call, ``Believe me, brother, it's gonna happen soon.''
Kavanaugh said Padilla was talking about the same subject -- jihad.
Complicating matters, however, was the agent's testimony on cross-examination. Padilla's attorney, Michael Caruso, who argued that his client went overseas solely to study Arabic and Islam, asked the FBI agent whether Padilla ever used code words for ''violent jihad,'' a key allegation in the murder-conspiracy charge.
''No, he does not,'' Kavanaugh testified.
Caruso asked the agent whether he ever heard Padilla discuss jihad training.
''No jihad training that I've seen,'' Kavanaugh replied.
In closing arguments, Caruso was emphatic that Padilla didn't join any terror conspiracy in the United States, let alone overseas.
Despite the FBI agent's conflicting testimony about Padilla's intentions, the jurors ultimately convicted him based on the July 28, 1997, phone call -- coupled with his Mujahedin application. The form had detailed information about Padilla's life.
''As you can see, Padilla's participation was minimal,'' said the second juror. But the juror stressed that his colleagues had a legal responsibility to convict him even if he played ''only a minor part'' in the conspiracy.
The juror added that Padilla had a ``general understanding about the conspiracy.''
Miami Herald staff writer Larry Lebowitz contributed to this story.
BY JAY WEAVER
After a long summer trial in Miami, the 12 jurors in the Jose Padilla terror case were convinced that Padilla's two codefendants were guilty of conspiring to support Islamic terrorists overseas.
Padilla's guilt wasn't as clear-cut. Despite prosecutors' portrait of him as a ''star recruit'' for al Qaeda, jurors viewed the former Broward County resident as a ''pawn'' in the international terror network.
But on the second day of deliberations, the federal jury zeroed in on an 18-page transcript of a 1997 phone conversation between Padilla and his mentor, who he met at a Fort Lauderdale mosque. That single call sealed Padilla's guilt as a jihad recruit, jurors told The Miami Herald.
The July 28, 1997, conversation, taped by the FBI, made it clear that Padilla had joined the South Florida-based terror conspiracy while he was still in the United States.
''We had such a hard time with Padilla,'' said one juror, who did not want to be identified because of fears of reprisals. ``But what we needed [to convict] was there. When we read the transcript of that phone call, it was like a light went on for all of us.''
The jurors saw the transcript as an essential piece of evidence because it proved that Padilla had become part of the local terrorism support cell in the United States 14 months before his 1998 trip to the Middle East.
Legally, the jurors had to conclude that Padilla participated in the conspiracy before his departure for Egypt to find him guilty of plotting to become a recruit for ''violent jihad'' abroad.
''That was our main doubt,'' said a second juror, who asked that his name not be used for his protection. ``We wanted to make sure we were linking him to the conspiracy in the United States.''
The trial, which began in mid-May, ended with surprising speed last week, with just 11 hours of deliberation. The jurors convicted Padilla; his recruiter, Adham Amin Hassoun, of Sunrise; and Hassoun's colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, formerly of Detroit, on three terror-related charges, including conspiracy to murder in jihad conflicts abroad. None took the witness stand.
The three men -- whose convictions were trumpeted by the Bush administration as a ''significant victory'' against homegrown terror threats -- face up to life in prison at their sentencings Dec. 5.
Only two jurors have spoken to The Miami Herald about deliberations. The others either declined comment, did not return calls or could not be reached.
The two jurors said that their colleagues -- despite a few heated moments -- got along pretty well. On the first day of deliberations, they organized hundreds of FBI transcripts of wiretapped phone conversations and other evidence.
They said the jury had no trouble finding Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, guilty of recruiting jihad soldiers and raising money for Muslim fighters in hot zones such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya during the 1990s. At trial, their defense was that the support was for humanitarian relief.
''Hassoun was easy for us,'' said the first juror. ``He was a talker. He was arrogant.''
''Jayyousi did a lot of good things for Muslim refugees and orphans on the one hand, but he also did a lot of bad things that we don't allow in this country,'' the same juror added.
Both jurors noted that Jayyousi received a 1994 fax from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden about a new public relations office in London.
But Padilla, 36, a Muslim convert, was seen by jurors as a bit player in the terror-support scheme. He presented a stumbling block for jurors.
Overall, the two jurors told The Miami Herald there wasn't a plump body of evidence to convict Padilla.
They said the panel wasn't influenced by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, nor did jurors have any knowledge of Padilla's history as a former ``enemy combatant.''
Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was held for more than three years without charges by the U.S. armed forces before a federal grand jury indicted him in Miami in late 2005.
At Padilla's trial, prosecutors did introduce compelling evidence of his Mujahedin application, dated July 24, 2000. It was recovered by the CIA from an alleged al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. His fingerprints were on the front and back of the five-page form in Arabic, a government expert testified.
But prosecutors presented no direct evidence that placed Padilla at the military-style camp in Afghanistan. Moreover, he was heard on only seven of 126 FBI-recorded phone calls entered into evidence at trial.
On the witness stand, FBI case agent John T. Kavanaugh testified about the handful of phone calls involving Padilla, focusing on the one made at 9:22 p.m. on July 28, 1997. Federal agents had a wiretap on Hassoun's home phone in Sunrise.
In the call, Padilla spoke to his Broward mentor, Hassoun, about learning ''discipline'' because ''over there'' a younger amir, or commander, might be in charge.
Hassoun then asked Padilla, ``You're ready, right?''
Padilla responded: ``God willing, brother. It's gonna happen soon.''
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier asked the agent what Padilla meant by ''over there'' in his decade-old conversation with Hassoun.
''A jihad area. That is what he is referring to,'' Kavanaugh testified.
The prosecutor then asked the agent what Padilla and Hassoun were talking about when Hassoun asked whether he was ''ready'' and Padilla answered ``it's gonna happen soon.''
Kavanaugh testified: ``Mr. Padilla's participation in going overseas to a jihad.''
The prosecutor further asked the agent what Padilla meant when he said later in the same call, ``Believe me, brother, it's gonna happen soon.''
Kavanaugh said Padilla was talking about the same subject -- jihad.
Complicating matters, however, was the agent's testimony on cross-examination. Padilla's attorney, Michael Caruso, who argued that his client went overseas solely to study Arabic and Islam, asked the FBI agent whether Padilla ever used code words for ''violent jihad,'' a key allegation in the murder-conspiracy charge.
''No, he does not,'' Kavanaugh testified.
Caruso asked the agent whether he ever heard Padilla discuss jihad training.
''No jihad training that I've seen,'' Kavanaugh replied.
In closing arguments, Caruso was emphatic that Padilla didn't join any terror conspiracy in the United States, let alone overseas.
Despite the FBI agent's conflicting testimony about Padilla's intentions, the jurors ultimately convicted him based on the July 28, 1997, phone call -- coupled with his Mujahedin application. The form had detailed information about Padilla's life.
''As you can see, Padilla's participation was minimal,'' said the second juror. But the juror stressed that his colleagues had a legal responsibility to convict him even if he played ''only a minor part'' in the conspiracy.
The juror added that Padilla had a ``general understanding about the conspiracy.''
Miami Herald staff writer Larry Lebowitz contributed to this story.
