Jury Reaches Verdict In Jose Padilla Terrorism Trial
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — Jose Padilla was found guilty on all counts in the terrorconspiracy trial after jurors reached a verdict less thantwo days after beginning deliberations, according to a U.S. District Court official.
Jose Padilla was originally accused of planning a “dirty bomb” attack in the U.S. The verdict wasannounced at 2:25 p.m. ET. Padilla and two co-defendants were on trial on charges of conspiracy to fund and support Islamic terrorism overseas. Padilla pleaded not guilty. At his trial, defense attorneys argued Padilla went overseas to only to study Islam.
During the trial, prosecutors played more than 70 intercepted phone calls among the defendants for jurors, including seven that featured Padilla , 36, a Brooklyn-born convert to Islam. FBI agent John Kavanaugh testified that the calls were made in code, which Padilla used to discuss traveling overseas to fight with Islamic militants, along with side trips to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
In closing arguments, Padilla’s lawyers argued he never spoke in code. His voice is heard on only seven of 300,000 taped conversations. Watch a recap of the Padilla case They also tried to rebut a key piece of prosecution evidence — an al Qaeda terrorist training camp application or “mujahedeen data form.”
A covert CIA officer — who testified in disguise at Padilla’s trial — said he was given the form in Afghanistan, and a fingerprint expert found Padilla’s prints on the form, prosecutors said. But Michael Caruso, Padilla’s defense attorney, said the prints on the form were not consistent with someone who filled out the document. “Jose at some point handled the document, but did not fill out the form,” Caruso said.
Padilla was originally arrested on dramatic allegations that he planned to set off radioactive “dirty bombs” in the United States. But the current charges are not related to those accusations, and prosecutors did not present the “dirty bomb” plot to the jury. Neither were jurors told that Padilla was held in a Navy brig for 3 years without charges before his indictment in the Miami case.
Before trial, his lawyers tried to argue that he was no longer mentally competent to stand trial after years of solitary confinement and abuse — allegations the government strongly denied. Padilla was taken into custody in Chicago as he stepped off a flight from Pakistan in 2002, and President Bush declared him an “enemy combatant” and had him transferred to military custody. The Supreme Court ducked the chance to rule on the legality of Padilla’s detention in 2006, arguing that the issue was moot after his transfer to civilian custody for the Miami trial.
