Richard Warnick‘The government has not made America any safer– It has just made America less free’
Via the Associated Press:
Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al-Qaeda to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial, unproven allegations.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke rejected a prosecution request for a sentence of life imprisonment because Padilla was arbitrarily kept in solitary confinement and subjected to torture. “I do find that the conditions were so harsh for Mr. Padilla … they warrant consideration in the sentencing in this case,” the judge said.
Padilla was added in 2005 to an existing Miami terrorism support case just as the U.S. Supreme Court was considering his challenge to President Bush’s decision to hold him in custody indefinitely without charge. The “dirty bomb” charges were quietly discarded and were never part of the criminal case.
Cooke sentenced Padilla’s recruiter, 45-year-old Adham Amin Hassoun, to 15 years and eight months in prison and the third defendant, 46-year-old Kifah Wael Jayyousi, to 12 years and eight months. Jayyousi was a financier and propagandist for the cell that assisted Islamic extremists in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere, according to trial testimony. Both also faced life in prison.
The men were convicted after a three-month trial based on tens of thousands of FBI telephone intercepts collected over an eight-year investigation and a form Padilla filled out in 2000 to attend an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member with a long criminal record, converted to Islam in prison and was recruited by Hassoun while attending a mosque in suburban Sunrise.
“The government has not made America any safer. It has just made America less free,” said William Swor, who represents Jayyousi.
UPDATE: In case you missed this related story, Padilla is suing John Yoo, the former deputy assistant Attorney General best known as the author of the Bush administration’s torture memos.
Previous One Utah posts about Jose Padilla:
A fair trial and a just verdict? (August 17, 2007)
The Lost Padilla Torture DVD and the Must-Do List (March 4, 2007)
Cell No. 103 (December 4, 2006)
