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Terrorism plotter Jose Padilla has prison sentence extended Terrorism plotter Jose Padilla has prison sentence extended
(35 minutes later)
Convicted terrorism plotter Jose Padilla has received a new prison sentence of 21 years after a federal appeals court ruled his original term of 17 years was too lenient. Convicted terrorism plotter Jose Padilla was handed a new prison sentence on Tuesday of 21 years after a federal appeals court ruled his original 17-year sentence was too lenient.
US district judge Marcia Cooke imposed the sentence onTuesday. Padilla was convicted in 2007 on charges of supporting al-Qaida and terrorism conspiracy. Padilla was convicted in 2007 on charges of supporting al-Qaida and terrorism conspiracy. The new sentence was imposed by US district judge Marcia Cooke, who originally gave Padilla more than 17 years in prison. She also previously gave Padilla, a US citizen and Muslim convert, credit for the more than three years he was held without charge as an enemy combatant at a South Carolina navy brig.
He was arrested by the FBI in 2002 on what authorities said was an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” inside the US. Those accusations were later dropped and Padilla was added to another terrorism case. The 11th US circuit court of appeals in 2011 determined that Cooke erred in giving Padilla credit for the brig years and also failed to properly account for his “heightened risk of dangerousness” due to training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan. In addition, the appeals judges ruled that Padilla – a former Chicago “Latin Kings” gang member – deserved a longer sentence because of his numerous previous arrests.
Before trial, Padilla was held without charge as an enemy combatant for over three years. “He is far more sophisticated than an individual convicted of an ordinary street crime,” the appeals court concluded.
More details soon … Padilla’s attorneys had asked for 21 years. Prosecutors wanted 30.
Padilla, 43, was arrested in 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare international airport during the tense months after the 9/11 attacks. At the time, authorities said Padilla was on an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb in a major US city. It later emerged that the “mission” was only a sketchy idea. The allegations against Padilla were dropped before he was added in 2005 to an existing south Florida terrorism case.
Before his indictment, Padilla’s attorneys challenged the right of President George W Bush’s administration to continue holding a US citizen like him as a combatant without charge. Because he was finally charged criminally, the US supreme court never got a chance to rule on the question. Cooke was appointed by George W Bush.
Trial testimony showed that Padilla had begun frequenting a Florida mosque where his co-defendant, Adham Hassoun, was recruiting fighters for Muslim jihad overseas. Padilla eventually traveled to Egypt and on to Afghanistan. A key piece of evidence against him was his name on an al-Qaida form listing attendees at the al-Farook terrorism training camp.
Hassoun and a third defendant, Islamist propagandist Kifah Jayyousi, where also convicted in the case. Hassoun is serving 15 years and Jayyousi 12 years.
Padilla’s lawyers tried before trial to get the case thrown out by claiming his treatment at the brig amounted to torture, which US officials have repeatedly denied. His attorneys say he was forced to stand in painful stress positions, given LSD or other drugs as “truth serum”, deprived of sleep and subjected to loud noises, extreme heat and cold and noxious odors.
“Our government has subjected Jose to extraordinarily harsh conditions of solitary confinement and isolation,” Padilla’s lawyer wrote in court papers.