The government concluded its case against Jose Padilla today. Gone is any real talk of the dirty bomb that Attorney General John Ashcroft made such a splash with just as the administration was taking heat from the 9/11 Commission for ignoring the warnings of Coleen Rowley and others (go to our Iraq War Timeline and look at June 2002). After spending 3 1/2 years in solitary confinement without access to an attorney, Padilla’s been charged with attending an Al Qaeda terror camp, and thus being part of a conspiracy to murder. Via Reuters:
The main evidence against Padilla is what the government calls an al Qaeda application form bearing his fingerprints, birthdate and similar background. It was recovered in Afghanistan and says the author speaks English, Spanish and Arabic, graduated from high school and trained as a carpenter, as Padilla did.
It used a name prosecutors contend was Padilla’s alias, and lists as his sponsor a man whose name was in Padilla’s address book when he was arrested.
Padilla’s defense is expected to argue his fingerprints could have got on the form when investigators handed it to him to examine after his arrest.
Attention trilingual journeymen carpenters everywhere: Watch your back! Now Padilla may have been an Al Qaeda wannabe or even the real deal. But it seems unlikely we’ll ever get to the bottom of that given that
Padilla was held without charge for 3-1/2 years before being indicted in a civilian court in November 2005 on charges that do not mention any bomb plot. The bomb allegations came from alleged al Qaeda operatives who have said they were tortured during interrogation before being sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Anything Padilla might have told interrogators in the military brig about such a plot would be inadmissible because he was denied access to an attorney for most of the time he was there.
Just an update from the war on terror. You can find all of Mother Jones‘ extensive coverage of the Padilla case here.
