U.S. citizen Jose Padilla convicted of federal terrorism support charges

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

MIAMI — Jose Padilla was convicted of federal terrorism support charges Thursday after being held for 3 ½ years as an enemy combatant in a case that came to symbolize the Bush administration's zeal to stop homegrown terror.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was once accused of being part of an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the U.S., but those allegations were not part of his trial.

Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi were convicted of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas, which carries a penalty of life in prison. All three were also convicted of two terrorism material support counts, which carry potential 15-year sentences each.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke set a Dec. 5 sentencing date for all three defendants.


Read more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003839258_webpadilla16.html

[musette_sf]

1. damn. n/t

[Drum]

2. appeal, Appeal, APPEAL!

x(

[nadinbrzezinski]

Hartman read it too

the test balloon is successful

Be afraid, very afraid

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Not exactly justice.

[displacedtexan]

4. WTF is federal terrorism support?

Is that like being a cheerleader?

[B3Nut]

55. I thought supporting federal terrorism

was voting for Bush. :P

My bad...

:sarcasm:

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[derby378]

5. I'm seething right now...

Imprisoned without charge for 3.5 years, physically and/or psychologically tortured 'til he's half-insane, and what do we do? Convict him anyway. Now he'll face the needle.

:mad:

[Maat]

6. My thoughts and sentiments exactly!

:mad:

[sinkingfeeling]

10. No, it's life in prison. From CNN.com .....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/16/padilla.verdict/index.html

Sentencing is set for December 5. All three defendants face life in prison.

[rodeodance]

7. An Inside Look at How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla

Forum Name General Discussion
Topic subject An Inside Look at How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1600449#1600449
1600449, An Inside Look at How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla
Posted by rodeodance on Thu Aug-16-07 01:31 PM



http://www.democracynow.org /

EXCLUSIVE: An Inside Look at How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla

In a Democracy Now! national broadcast exclusive, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty speaks for the first time about her experience interviewing Jose Padilla for 22 hours to determine the state of his mental health. Padilla is the U.S. citizen who was classified by President Bush as an enemy combatant and held in extreme isolation at a naval brig in South Carolina for over three-and-a-half years. His case is now before a Florida jury. "What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being's mind," said Dr. Hegarty. " personality was deconstructed and reformed." She said the effects of the extreme isolation on Padilla are consistent with brain damage. "I don't know if he's guilty or not of the charges that they brought against him," said Dr. Hegarty. "But, already - before he was ever found guilty - he's paid a tremendous price for his trip to the Middle East."

[ohio2007]

12. Jose Padilla was pretty much 'cheese and crackers' before 9/11

What did his high school teachers say about him when they were interviewed?

[JimRob is a Douche]

34. I couldn't even imagine the torture he went through!

"In ways reminiscent of Gin-gis Kahn."

This guy was doomed from the beginning.

The state wanted him and they went after him.

They couldn't get Sami al-Arian with the so-called "evidence" they had, so they made sure this time!

Even if they had to go to (arguably) the most deranged man in the world to get it: KSM!

[Supersedeas]

58. America the beautiful?

[MiaCulpa]

8. Did anyone notice the banner on cnn's site?

It went up the moment the verdict was to come in, and it's HUGE; Jenna Bush is engaged. Divert! Divert!

[hang a left]

9. Unbelievable.

Is the penalty death??

No wonder Gonzo was given his new toy to play with.

[Pachamama]

11. I don't know if he is "guilty" or not...but he shouldn't have been found guilty...the illegal way he

was "detained" and not charged, tortured and the use of information obtained both from "anonymous" sources from Gitmo etc. (and most likely under torture) should have had this case dismissed or had him found not guilty.

I feel sick. We have a fascist police state where the dictator can declare you an enemy combatant, detain you, torture you and then you are still found guilty where they put you away for life.

Wow....welcome to Amerika! :puke:

[icymist]

19. Why does that surprise you when false conviction is tolerated throughout

the US. When the convicts are incarcerated, there is no calls for reestablishment of the former convicts status or finesses. No calls for "Let's pay restitution for this man, wrongly convicted through our arrogance and self righteous demand for justice even though it destroy innocents, leaving only to forget this person!
Somehow, they brought this false accusation upon themselves. Welcome to Prisons Inc.*tm! Guess who's going to go to jail next?

[demo dutch]

52. Heh it happend in Miami, what else did you expect!

[humbled_opinion]

13. Was this a real selected Jury Trial or a bunch of Suits onboard with the Admin?

[underpants]

14. Hold it! He got engaged to Jenna???

Maybe I didn't read that right :silly:

[intaglio]

15. Another link K&R

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6950333.stm

[onewholaughsatfools]

16. The justice system is so messed up

This is a Shame but I am sure nothing will be done about this either... Maybe a bush pardon!

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tbyg52]

18. This is horrible, but what isn't lately?

"Lately" meaning the last six and a half years. :cry:

[johnhannahthree]

20. good news

This a repeat of my post on "verdict in" since everyone has moved on to this.

This proves that our system of due process is perfectly capable of handling terrorists or would-be terrorists. We don´t need to declare people enemy combatants and suspend habeas corpus. Had he been acquitted it would have been ammunition for the other side´s argument, regardless of whether he is really guilty. But a jury of his peers, not a military tribunal, looked at the facts and found the man guilty. The system works and this is not so much a victory in the war on terror, but a victory for constitutionalism and law and a blow to those who say we need to suspend our liberties.

[MaineDem]

23. Why did they hold him 3 years without charging him?

Why did they add him to this case as an afterthought?

[johnhannahthree]

26. because

the Supreme Court was about to rule on the case and they were afraid of an unfavorable ruling. So Gonzo just said "nevermind." This way there is still no SCOTUS ruling on the whole enemy combatant idea. Yeah what happened to him was terrible. he should have had his day in court years ago. But he finally did and he was found guilty.

[Zodiak]

24. I disagree

How in the world can refusing to admit any evidence of his three and a half years of torture, isolation, and detention, relying on a "terrorist application" that no one disputes he didn't fill out himself (they say it has his fingerprints on it, though), and seven phone calls where the prosecutor says he was speaking "in code" be enough evidence to convict?

This is not a victory for justice...this is a travesty. A star chamber trial in hicksville with a predetermined outcome. That is not much better than being tried in secret in GITMO, in my opinion.

This had better be appealed because Padilla did not get due process...how is not being allowed to use the best defense available (the judge wouldn't let the defense use the defense they wanted) considered fair due process?

Do not look back at a hollow victory from over a year ago and hold it up as if it is a shiny new victory. Under this conviction, anyone can be accused of speaking "in code" on any conversation and hauled off to jail for life for being a terrorist if someone else fills out an application for them.

This stinks....I feel that another piece of American justice fell off today.

[johnhannahthree]

38. star chamber

That star chamber was a US District court in which he could face his accusers, see the evidence against him, be represented by an attorney, call witnesses, cross examine the government witnesses, and not be forced to testify. The result of all that due process was that he was found guilty.

Now he has the right to more due process in the form of the right to appeal. And that´s what I´m sure he will do. And he will probably raise the fact that he wasn´t able bring into evidence the circumstances of his detention and treatment. And an appeals court may or may not uphold his conviction.

Just because he was mistreated and denied those rights doesn´t make him innocent. In fact it looks like Bush illegally detained and tortured a guilty man. The man was victimized, cruelly victimized and denied his rights. But, again, that doesn´t make him innocent.

My point is that this takes the wind out of the sails of those who say it was necessary to deny him the day in court he just got. If he had been aquitted the right wingers would be sreaming about how we need to give the president dictatorial powers.

[treestar]

51. What he could do is appeal on all those grounds

If they apply.

Then also try a civil suit for violation of his civil rights. Since Bushco gave up and left him to the court system. Also he has a lower burden of proof then. Though from what I hear, he may not do it, being that he appears to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

[treestar]

33. Good point. We can say they should have charged him three years

ago.

I hope they were not allowed to use "evidence" they obtained in violation of the 5th Amendment.

[johnhannahthree]

40. Also a good point

And if it was, that was wrong and I´m sure he will raise it on appeal. I´m just not willing to jump to the conclusion that the guy should go free, even if he´s guilty, simply because he was totured.

Remember the government finally turned him over to the court system because they were afraid the SCOTUS would rule the whole ënemy combatant¨nonsense unconstitutional. If that issue ever goes before SCOTUS, the governments argument that civilian courts aren´t capable to deal with such things just got a lot weaker.

[rmgarrette64]

43. Yet another caveat

There has never been any danger that the Supreme Court would rule 'the whole enemy combatant nonsense unconstitutional.' They won't even touch that ball of wax (I think correctly, others here disagree...)

The question on which they may have ruled was whether an American citizen could be declared an enemy combatant. That is a question on which they do have jurisdiction, and it is far from certain which way they would have gone. And, yes, the Bush Administration made the question moot by simply having the trial.

R. Garrett

[johnhannahthree]

44. it was on the docket

The Supremes had scheduled the Padilla case. That´s when they moved him out of the brig. And after the Hamdi-GITMO ruling that they lost, they decided to hand him over to the courts.

[MilesColtrane]

37. Sure it's a victory if it was a fair trial.

But, I have my doubts.

This is quite simply a case the government HAD to win.

A Justice Department headed up by a known liar who pisses on the Constitution is easily capable of manufacturing evidence, presenting illegal evidence (wiretapping), and coercing testimony from witnesses by torture.

If Padilla gets life I wonder if they'll release him three and a half years before he dies since that's time he's already served. :sarcasm:

[johnhannahthree]

39. very good points

But the whole point of all of this was that he should have been put through our constitutionally established system. That has now happened, and will continue to happen throughout the appeals process. Some posters here seem to feel that the guy wasn´t guilty just because he was a victim of Bush and Ashcroft and then Gonzales.

Maybe some day those three will get some due process too. Nothing justifies what was done to him. But if he was, as the jury found, running around and meeting with Al Queada people and planning to kill people, then he should spend the rest of his life behind bars.

[Kali]

59. I see your points.

I agree. However there needs to be some accountability for the torture and 3 plus years of no due process.

Y bien vinedos a DU.

[ThomCat]

21. Our government now has permission to

torture citizens, disappear them into legal limbo, play legal shell games with the charges, and still get whatever convictions they want. They have their precedent.

And now they will use that to expand their reach and power over anyone they like. This will get worse.

Anyone who disents against the government is at risk.

[johnhannahthree]

42. no

they now have less of an excuse to try to do so.

[ThomCat]

48. How do you see that?

What excuse has been taken away from them? What has this administration lost?

[uppityperson]

50. That doesn't make sense to me.

Seems this gives them more power to do whatever the hell they want. Lock someone up or send them to a kangaroo court. What a choice.

[johnhannahthree]

54. Glen Greenwald

Has put it better than I possibly could

"A federal jury in Miami today unanimously found U.S. citizen Jose Padilla guilty of "conspiracy to support Islamic terrorism overseas." In so doing, the jury dealt an enormous blow not only to Padilla himself, but also to the theory which the Bush administration cited to justify its most extremist power over the last six years -- namely, the power to imprison U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil, with no charges of any kind.".....

"The administration repeatedly contended that it was exercising this extraordinary and definitively tyrannical power -- a power literally denied for centuries even to the British King -- because it claimed that dangerous terrorists like Padilla could not be tried in a U.S. criminal court. Today's verdict -- along with scores of other terrorist convictions obtained with full due process rights both in the U.S. and other places, such as England -- gives the lie to that claim."

read the whole thing here

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

[uppityperson]

57. They held him for 3 1/2 yrs, then convicted him after torturing him.

It doesn't sound that great to me. Yes, "terrorists" can be tried, and convicted based on info tortured out of them.

[derby378]

22. Sound off on the Padilla verdict on this CNN page

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/16/padilla.verdict/index.html

Hurry - I fear it's being FReeped.

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. Edgar Lee Masters...

Carl Hamblin

THE press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,
And I was tarred and feathered,
For publishing this on the day the
Anarchists were hanged in Chicago:
"l saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes
Standing on the steps of a marble temple.
Great multitudes passed in front of her,
Lifting their faces to her imploringly.
In her left hand she held a sword.
She was brandishing the sword,
Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer,
Again a slinking woman, again a lunatic.
In her right hand she held a scale;
Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed
By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.
A man in a black gown read from a manuscript:
"She is no respecter of persons."
Then a youth wearing a red cap
Leaped to her side and snatched away the bandage.
And lo, the lashes had been eaten away
From the oozy eye-lids;
The eye-balls were seared with a milky mucus;
The madness of a dying soul
Was written on her face--
But the multitude saw why she wore the bandage."

Spoon River Anthology

[Kolesar]

27. Who were the anarchists?

(I remember repeating your sig line to my friends in a November.)

[Davis_X_Machina]

29. Haymarket, Chicago, 1886

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Riot#Trial.2C_executions_and_pardons">here

[Kolesar]

30. The Pinkertons, again

What a sad story, but meaningful.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

28. ...and the timing of this has nothing to do with Rove's resignation.

:sarcasm:

[JimRob is a Douche]

31. Sad day for the rule of law!

The evidence gathered by the torture of KSM has been instrumental in the conviction.

I feel bad for the guy. I think he really got screwed. I think the fact that he's been tried in Miami Beach (for the most part)- not necessarily ever confused with Dearborn, Michigan, mind you!- goes to show you that there was a real series of powers against him from the beginning.

Some people (especially those from my freaky namesake's website!) like to think that he was Timothy McVeigh's co-conspirator even!

I guess evidence is never necessary to convict in the minds of some of these conservonazis!

[DU GrovelBot]

32. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

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This week is our third quarter 2007 fund drive. Democratic
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[JimRob is a Douche]

35. This from a "compassionate" conservative over at FR:

"Allah's Word is made superior

Notice that the comparative is used not the superlative.

Bombing the Kabbah will prove that Allah is an inferior deity."

71 posted on 08/16/2007 12:07:51 PM PDT by Beckwith (dhimmicrats and the liberal media have .chosen sides -- Islamofascism)


Nice.

I hope they don't have any children that live.

Could you imagine how well adjusted they'd be?!?!

[HuffleClaw]

36. a soviet-styled show trial at the very least

and Bushco. will no doubt trumpet this horrifying miscarriage of justice as a 'great success' as they continue to run amok in their mad rush to ever increasing power. in a non-bizarro world this case would have been laughed out of court.

[johnhannahthree]

41. well

had he been aquitted, Bush would be claiming he needs to be able to lock people up by executive fiat. it´s a lot harder for him to make that case now.

[HuffleClaw]

45. i'd thought he was claiming that very thing NOW?

i mean, isn't that essentially what they did to the guy for five years?

[johnhannahthree]

46. yes it is

no doubt about it.

[Zhade]

47. This is MURDER.

Murder!

These people must be held criminally accountable for their actions!

Dems, I'm looking at you.

[INDIA]

56. Wait, who is getting murdered? I'm confused. Has there been a sentence yet?

Where do you get your info?

[uppityperson]

49. k&r, come on please, 1 more rec to get on Greatest. This is worth it, thanks.

appalling.

[Fovea]

53. America has lost due process.

What did we expect.

[libodem]

60. This whole fiasco seems trumped up to me

the Alphabet Agencies are so desperate to justify, earning their Billions of dollars, they were willing to grab anyone who had overseas contact of any kind. Providing any material support in the form of charity or relief has become a crime. This was going on way prior to 9/11. He went to Egypt in 1998 to study. These poor excuses intelligence Agencies really had to 'dig', to come up with a supposed 'application' to Al Qaida 'Training Camp'. Like Osama sent out Applications? Weird. The other two guys had been supplying relief to areas like Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Wasn't the whole US helping Bosnia in the late 1990's? The CIA ought to just go back to buying prisoners with bounties from the locals.