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Padilla Indicted Without “Dirty Bomb” Allegation
The federal indictment released yesterday against U.S. “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla includes no charges related to previous allegations that he planned to detonate a radiological weapon within the United States, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 28). Padilla and four other men were charged with supplying funding and recruits to “murder, main and kidnap” for Islamic causes in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia and other locations, according to the indictment. “The indictment alleges that Padilla traveled overseas to train as a terrorist with the intention of fighting a violent jihad,” said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Padilla could face a life sentence if convicted, along with 15 years each for separate charges of providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy. His trial is set to begin in September in Miami. Gonzales declined to say why the indictment did not include the “dirty bomb” allegations or claims that Padilla had planned to use conventional explosives against U.S. hotels and apartment buildings. Padilla had been held as an “enemy combatant” for three years without facing charges. His lawyers last month filed documents to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Departing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, in a separate case last year, wrote that a “state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.” The White House filed the charges “to avoid an adverse decision of the Supreme Court,” said Eric Freedman, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University in New York. “There’s no guarantee the government won’t do this again to Mr. Padilla or others,” said Stanford University law professor Jenny Martinez, who is representing Padilla before the Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court needs to review this case on the merits so the lower court decision [upholding detention] is not left lying like a loaded gun for the government to use whenever it wants” (Mark Sherman, Associated Press/San Marcos Daily Record, Nov. 23).
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