Remember when Jose Padilla dominated our headlines? The jury has his case and you wouldn't know it

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http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,8599,262269,00.html

Person of the Week: Jose Padilla

Friday, Jun. 14, 2002 By TONY KARON

An al-Qaeda plot was broken up this week — a well-organized conspiracy involving hardened, well-trained bin Laden operatives taking instructions from the surviving operational core of the organization, with the know-how, experience and the means to kill dozens of unsuspecting Americans. And it was busted through timely cooperation by a number of different intelligence agencies.

That plot, of course, had nothing to do with Jose Padilla, or his notorious alter ego, Abdullah al-Mujahir. It concerned three Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda operatives recently relocated to Morocco, who had planned to use a rubber dinghy packed with explosives to attack U.S. Navy vessels passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. The reason you're probably only faintly aware, if aware at all, of the foiled Morocco plot is that the U.S. media has been dominated this week by a mug-shot of former Chicago gangbanger Padilla, and talk of "dirty bombs."

Padilla entered public life via an announcement from Moscow on Monday, by Attorney General John Ashcroft, that an al-Qaeda operative had been captured at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, en route to contaminate a U.S. city with a radiological bomb. Within minutes panicky cable news channels were running file footage of mushroom clouds. They then spent much of the next two days atoning via a more sober explanation of dirty-bomb scenarios — and why they're not nearly as scary as they sound.

But as the (not quite radioactive) dust settled on Ashcroft's dramatic announcement, some began asking not only why Mr. Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was being held in a Navy brig as an "enemy combatant," but also why he was dominating America's headlines — and its nightmares. Within hours of Ashcroft's announcement, administration officials were pointing out that Padilla had no radioactive material or any other bomb-making equipment. Nor had he chosen a target, or formulated a plan. And while his connections with al-Qaeda operatives were never in doubt, he suddenly began to look a lot more like the accused shoe-bomber Richard Reid (i.e. another disaffected ex-con from the West desperate to get in with al-Qaeda) than like the sophisticated professionals who put together September 11.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6936015.stm

Testimony ends in US terror trial

Tuesday, 7 August 2007

The defence has rested its case in the trial of US citizen Jose Padilla and two other men accused of supporting terrorism and conspiring to kill.

Mr Padilla's lawyers did not call a single witness during the 53-day trial.

Evidence from the prosecution focused on recorded telephone conversations involving his co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi.

All three men face life sentences if convicted of providing support for Islamic extremists overseas.