Padilla Guilty

By Kevin Robinson in News on Aug 17, 2007 1:00PM

Former Chicago resident and one-time member of the Maniac Latin Disciples Jose Padilla was convicted yesterday of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas, conspiracy to provide material support for terrorists, and providing material support for terrorists. Adham Amin Hassoun, a Lebanon-born Palestinian, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a naturalized US citizen born in Jordan, were convicted as well in federal court.

Although held for 3-1/2 years in military custody as an enemy combatant, his case was moved to the 11th Circuit federal court in Miami last year as the US Supreme Court was about to rule on the issue of jurisdiction over his case. A key piece of evidence in the case was an application Padilla turned into al Qaeda, hoping to attend a terror training camp in Afghanistan, recovered by the CIA in 2001. The application had seven of Padilla's fingerprints, as well as personal information. The document linked him to his co-defendants as well. Included in the prosecutions evidence presented at trial was some 300,000 recorded telephone conversations involving Padilla and Hassoun and Jayyousi.

Padilla was arrested at O'Hare airport in 2002 on a warrant for his connection to the September 11 attacks in New York. Although he was originally a suspect in an alleged plot to detonate a "dirty-bomb" here, those details were not brought up in the 11th Circuit trial. Much of the information about the planned attack was obtained during interrogations in military custody, without legal council or having his Miranda rights read to him. In June of 02, President Bush ordered Padilla held as an enemy combatant shortly before a federal judge was to issue a ruling on the validity of continued imprisonment.

Padilla is scheduled to be sentenced December 5. He faces life in prison.

Image via NNDB