Padilla sentence: Does terror training merit life?

On Tuesday, a federal judge will announce Al Qaeda recruit's long-awaited prison sentence.

from the January 22, 2008 edition

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No evidence of this type was presented at the trial.

Mr. Caruso said that rather than life in prison under a broadly defined murder conspiracy charge, his client should be sentenced for the crime of attending an Al Qaeda training camp. That crime, under a statute passed by Congress in 2004, carries a 10-year-maximum prison sentence.

Federal prosecutors have succeeded in obtaining significant prison sentences for individuals convicted of providing material support to a terrorist group. But in each of those cases the criminal conduct included evidence of actions beyond mere attendance at a training camp.

Hamid Hayat of Lodi, Calif., was sentenced to 24 years in prison on charges that he attended a terrorist training camp. But his case also included a videotaped confession in which he admitted an intention to use his violent skills to attack hospitals, banks, grocery stores, and government buildings in the US.

Ahmed Sattar was sentenced to 24 years in prison on murder conspiracy charges identical to the charges in the Padilla case. But prosecutors in Mr. Sattar's case presented evidence that he personally relayed a religious order from an imprisoned militant Muslim cleric in the US that sparked a resumption of terrorist attacks in Egypt.

A life sentence in the Padilla case would provide federal prosecutors with a powerful tool to prevent future acts of terrorism in cases in which US officials have minimal evidence, legal analysts say. But they add that it would raise important constitutional questions and civil liberties concerns.

A life sentence for Padilla is also important to the Bush administration, analysts say, because it would help justify Padilla's earlier detention and harsh interrogation in a brig in South Carolina. Padilla, a US citizen, was held for three and a half years without charge after being designated an enemy combatant by President Bush.

Padilla burst onto the national stage in June 2002 when US officials announced that he'd been detained as an enemy combatant for allegedly plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in a US city. US officials later backed away from the claim and instead suggested he was sent to blow up occupied apartment buildings.

In June 2004, Justice Department officials said Padilla had given a full confession during his military interrogation in the brig. But officials conceded that the information probably could not be admitted in an American courtroom because coercive methods used during Padilla's interrogation rendered the information too unreliable for use as admissible evidence.

No court has yet ruled on the constitutionality of Padilla's detention in the brig or on the legality of the harsh interrogation methods used against an American citizen detained on US soil.

Lawyers for Padilla have filed civil lawsuits in South Carolina and California seeking to hold Bush administration officials and military personnel legally accountable for Padilla's alleged mistreatment and torture.

During the sentencing hearing in Miami, Padilla's lawyer urged Cooke to give Padilla credit for his three and a half years in the brig and for the two additional years he was held in Miami in solitary confinement prior to his trial. Prosecutors countered that Padilla's brig detention has nothing to do with the criminal charges in the Miami case.

Padilla was given an opportunity on Friday to address Cooke. He declined.

A day earlier, Padilla's mother, Estela Lebron, told the judge: "I just want to let you know my son is not a monster, and he is not a danger to this country."

She added, motioning toward the prosecutors, "What they are doing to my son is injustice."

Cooke has announced that she will hand down sentences for Padilla, Mr. Hassoun, and Mr. Jayyousi at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.

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