The Wall Street Journal-20080123-Economy - Politics- Padilla-s Sentence Is Under the Minimum
Return to: The_Wall_Street_Journal-20080123
Economy & Politics: Padilla's Sentence Is Under the Minimum
A federal judge in Miami sentenced Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting to set off a "dirty bomb" in an American city, to 17 years and four months in prison for unrelated charges, including a conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder overseas.
The sentence fell short of the life term prosecutors sought, and sentencing guidelines suggested a range of 30 years to life. The judge said his decision was intended, in part, to compensate for the "harsh conditions" Mr. Padilla, a U.S. citizen, endured during three years he was held without charge, as an "enemy combatant."
The outcome did little to clear the controversy over Mr. Padilla's detention in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., a step the Bush administration said was necessary to allow unfettered interrogation and critics complained exceeded the president's authority. Administration allies said the case did nothing to diminish the president's rationale for locking up suspects as enemy combatants outside the criminal-justice system.
Civilian prosecution "worked because they had something else they could carve out and charge him with," said Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. For others accused of fomenting terror plots overseas, he said, "it's going to be very difficult to have admissible evidence that will be adequate in a civilian court to convict these guys."
Critics said that was exactly the point.
"When the government has a good case and has evidence, juries will convict. And when they bring bogus charges, as they've done in a couple of cases recently, juries will not convict," said Miami attorney Neal Sonnett, who heads the American Bar Association's Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants.
Mr. Padilla, 37 years old, was a juvenile delinquent and gang member who served prison time before converting to Islam in the 1990s. He had been among several suspected jihadists under government surveillance in the 1990s. Federal agents arrested him at Chicago O'Hare International Airport in May 2002 as he returned from Pakistan. The following month, before a court hearing where the government would have had to justify Mr. Padilla's detention, President Bush declared him an enemy combatant and sent him to the brig, where he was denied access to counsel and interrogated.
Three years later, with the Supreme Court weighing Mr. Padilla's claim that his military detention was unlawful, the government returned him to civilian custody, and he was added as a defendant to an existing case against other alleged jihadists.
Mr. Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi were convicted in August. All three are expected to appeal. Mr. Hassoun, 45, was sentenced to 15 years, eight months. Mr. Jayyousi, 46, was sentenced to 12 years, eight months.
At trial in a federal court in Miami, the government accused Mr. Padilla of conspiring to send funds and recruits to Islamist terrorist groups overseas. Prosecutors introduced what they said was an application form Mr. Padilla completed to attend an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
The trial made no reference to the reasons Mr. Padilla was detained in 2002. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft initially described it as a plot to set off a radiological bomb. Officials later suggested Mr. Padilla was exploring other possible crimes, such as blowing up an apartment building. Officials acknowledged that Mr. Padilla's detention without access to a lawyer or judicial review made his statements inadmissible in court. Mr. Padilla has filed lawsuits against several U.S. officials in connection with his military detention.
A man who traveled with Mr. Padilla in Pakistan, Binyam Mohamed, was sent to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant and is expected to face trial by military commission. Mr. Mohamed, an Ethiopian who had lived in Britain, has denied wrongdoing.
