Intent is key for Padilla jurors

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago

To decide whether Jose Padilla and two other men are guilty of supporting terrorism, jurors are going to have to get inside their heads. Was Padilla the "star recruit" of a terror support cell, or just a recent convert to Islam learning Arabic and the Quran? Did his co-defendants aim to support Islamic extremists in global conflict zones, or were they trying to help innocent Muslims suffering in those same areas?

The question of intent is critical for jurors who are expected to begin deliberating this week whether Padilla, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi conspired to murder, maim and kidnap people overseas and provide material support to extremists in places like Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Bosnia and Lebanon.

"They decided that this end justified any means, including murder," federal prosecutor Brian Frazier said in closing arguments Monday. "Jose Padilla was a mujahedeen recruit and an al-Qaida terrorist trainee."

But Hassoun attorney Kenneth Swartz said in the first of three defense closing statements that "this case is all about speculation. It is not about proof of a crime. There is no intent to murder. The only intent is to provide relief."

Attorneys for Padilla and Jayyousi were scheduled to give closing arguments Tuesday, followed by rebuttal from prosecutors. Jurors are likely to begin deliberations Wednesday.

Even if the assistance the defendants provided wound up in the hands of rebels or terrorists, U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke instructed jurors that it is no crime if the trio intended that it be used for relief work such as helping refugees or buying medicine.

If convicted of the murder conspiracy charge, Padilla — who was once accused by the Bush administration of planning to detonate a radioactive bomb in the U.S. — and his co-defendants could be sentenced to life in prison. The two material support counts carry potential sentences of up to 15 years.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest in a purported al-Qaida "dirty bomb" plot, but his trial does not include those allegations.

Padilla is the centerpiece of the case, largely because prosecutors say he links the other two to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

"Padilla was the star recruit of a terrorist support cell," Frazier said.

Prosecutors want jurors to convict Padilla largely on the basis of a five-page "mujahedeen data form" he supposedly filled out in 2000 to attend an al-Qaida terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.

The CIA found that form in Afghanistan in late 2001. It contains seven of Padilla's fingerprints, one of his alleged Muslim aliases, his birthday, notes the applicant's ability to speak English, Spanish and Arabic and has other identifying details.

Padilla's attorneys say he traveled overseas to study Arabic and go on a hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, not to train to be a terrorist. They called no witnesses on his behalf and introduced no evidence, adopting the risky strategy of suggesting to the jurors that prosecutors failed to prove their case.

The data form was not analyzed for fingerprints until last year, and the defense has theorized that Padilla handled it while he was held as an enemy combatant.

There is little other hard evidence involving Padilla. Thousands of hours of FBI wiretap intercepts from 1993 to 2001 include numerous conversations of Hassoun and Jayyousi, but Padilla's voice is heard on only seven.

There is also little direct evidence connecting Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, to any specific acts of violence or specific killings. The victims, according to prosecutors, would include the Russian army in Chechnya, Serbian forces in Kosovo and other military groups around the world.

Evidence does include numerous checks written by Hassoun and Jayyousi to various organizations that prosecutors say were involved in terrorism, such as the Global Relief Foundation and American Worldwide Relief.

Swartz said Hassoun gave thousands of dollars to relief organizations and staged fundraisers at South Florida mosques because of repeated atrocities directed against Muslims.

"Their passion was relief," Swartz said of Hassoun and others. "There is no talk of terrorism or premeditated murder."

Jose Padilla had no history of mental illness when President Bush ordered him detained in 2002 as a suspected Al Qaeda operative. But he does now.

Padilla case built on fear, lawyers say

By Jane Sutton 7 minutes ago

The terrorism support case against U.S. citizen Jose Padilla and two other men was built on fear, prejudice against Muslims and government overreaching after the September 11 attacks, defense lawyers said in closing arguments on Tuesday.

"We don't achieve security by bringing these types of charges on this type of evidence," Padilla's lawyer, Michael Caruso, told jurors who are scheduled to begin deliberating on Wednesday.

Padilla was held without charge in a military prison for 3 1/2 years by order of President George W. Bush before being added to the case against co-defendants Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi.

The Bush administration accused him after his 2002 arrest of plotting to set off a radioactive bomb. Bush ordered him imprisoned by the military as an "enemy combatant." Amid court challenges to the president's authority to do that, Padilla was indicted in a civilian court in November 2005 on charges that do not mention any bomb plot.

Caruso described Padilla as linked only casually to Hassoun and said he had never met Jayyousi until he reached the Miami courtroom.

All three face life in prison if convicted of providing material support for Islamist terrorist groups and conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim people in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and other countries from 1993 to 2001.

The government charged that Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, and Jayyousi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan, formed a support cell that recruited and financed fighters bent on establishing Islamist governments that would follow strict Sharia law.

Prosecutors said Hassoun recruited Padilla at a Florida mosque and sent him to an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan to train as a killer. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier called Padilla, 36, their "star recruit."

'SNAKE OIL'

Caruso described him as a quiet, lonely, mentally "slow" man who worked at a chicken restaurant and volunteered to cook and clean at the Florida mosque, where he was remembered mainly for reading a Spanish-language Koran.

Mosque members took up a collection to send him to Egypt to study Arabic and Islam, a witness testified.

There was no direct evidence Padilla went to Afghanistan. The key evidence against him was what prosecutors called an al Qaeda application form found in Afghanistan and bearing his fingerprints, alias and birthdate.

Caruso suggested the form was faked and given to Padilla to handle after his arrest. It had two types of ink, several types of handwriting and Padilla's fingerprints were only on the first and last page, consistent with handling it but not filling it out, he said.

Jayyousi's lawyer, William Swor, called the government's case "snake oil," built on snippets of wiretapped conversations, questionably translated from Arabic and taken out of context by government witnesses who never examined 99.8 percent of the recordings.

During the three-month trial, the government introduced into evidence about 125 transcripts from more than 300,000 conversations over nearly a decade. Padilla's voice was on seven phone calls, discussing his struggle to learn Arabic, adjust to Egyptian culture and support his new Egyptian wife, his attorney said.

"It's clear his intention is to study, not to murder," Caruso said.

Prosecutors said the defendants were al Qaeda affiliates and Frazier mentioned the group 100 times during his closing argument. Defense lawyers denied any link to the group and accused the government of playing to jurors' fears in a post-9/11 world.

Swor called the case "U.S. versus Islam" and said it relied on fear of Muslims to cover a lack of evidence.

Defense lawyers said Jayyousi, a U.S. Navy veteran, and Hassoun worked with legitimate charities that provided medicine, food and clothing to Muslims being slaughtered and displaced in Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere in the 1990s.