http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-padilla10sep10,0,1442077.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=morenews
U.S. Wins Court Ruling in 'Dirty Bomb' Case
An appellate panel says Jose Padilla can be detained indefinitely
without trial or charge.
By Richard A. Serrano
Times Staff Writer
September 10, 2005
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Jose Padilla,
held for more than three years after federal officials said he planned
to set off radiological devices, or "dirty bombs," could be detained
indefinitely without trial.
The unanimous decision by a panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of
Appeals significantly boosts the Bush administration's program of
jailing key Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects without filing criminal
charges or holding trials — whether the detainees were Americans
arrested in the U.S. or citizens of other countries seized abroad — in
an effort to squeeze intelligence information from alleged terrorist
operatives.
The ruling could have major implications for detainees at the U.S.
naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many, like Padilla, have
been deemed "enemy combatants." Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote the
decision for the three-member panel in Richmond, Va. He is considered
to be on President Bush's short list of candidates to fill a vacancy
on the Supreme Court.
Padilla's attorneys plan to appeal the ruling to the high court. If
they do not prevail, Friday's ruling apparently would seal Bush's
controversial use of executive authority to skirt the U.S. courts.
"The court's ruling effectively declares the entire world, including
the United States, to be a battlefield subject to military
jurisdiction, where American citizens can be stripped of their
constitutional rights," said Deborah Pearlstein, director of the U.S.
law and security program at Human Rights First, an advocacy group in
New York and Washington.
At the heart of the White House argument to indefinitely detain half a
dozen terrorist suspects in this country, as well as the captives at
Guantanamo Bay, was the fear that they could be acquitted at trial and
then released.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force joint resolution, which
Congress enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks, allows the president to
indefinitely detain suspected terrorists "in order to prevent any
future acts of international terrorism against the United States," the
appeals court said.
Equally important, administration officials said, was the need to
interrogate suspects to learn about potential attacks.
In Padilla's case, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales indicated Friday
that his continuing incarceration had paid off in new U.S.
intelligence about terrorist activities.
"Multiple intelligence sources separately confirmed Padilla's
involvement in planning future terrorist attacks against the United
States with Al Qaeda leaders," Gonzales said.
Those alleged targets are believed to have been apartment buildings
and gas stations in the United States; the weapons allegedly being
developed were radiological dispersal devices, or dirty bombs.
Despite the government's determination to keep Padilla locked up, his
chief attorney, Donna Newman of New York, said she never sought his
automatic release from a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Rather, she
said, she wanted the government to try him. "They're not giving him a
chance to fight this," she said. "They're telling him he's going to be
held forever, that he has no rights. What they're saying is worse than
a life sentence."
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law,
questioned what intelligence Padilla could provide after more than
three years in jail, because many terrorist operatives he is believed
to have known, among them Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, have also been arrested.
"Why not go ahead and prosecute him?" Tobias asked. "What is there
more to get from him? Except to make an example of him."
Tobias also questioned whether Luttig should have recused himself from
the case, given his potential nomination to the Supreme Court.
Luttig's situation parallels that of Judge John G. Roberts Jr., who
recently participated in an appellate court ruling that allowed the
administration to conduct military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay. At the
time the ruling was issued, Roberts was being considered for a Supreme
Court vacancy. On Monday, Bush nominated him to be chief justice of
the United States.
Padilla, 34, was born in New York and raised in Chicago. As an adult
in South Florida, he embraced Islam and moved to the Middle East and
Central Asia.
According to Friday's legal opinion, which included information
provided by the government, Al Qaeda operatives recruited Padilla to
train for jihad in Afghanistan in February 2000, while he was on a
religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
He met Al Qaeda leaders, was taught how to build and detonate
explosives, and served as an armed guard "at what he understood to be
a Taliban outpost" in Afghanistan, the ruling said.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, when the United States invaded
Afghanistan, "Padilla and other Al Qaeda operatives moved from safe
house to safe house to evade bombing or capture," the opinion said. He
eventually escaped to Pakistan, armed with an assault rifle.
There, he met with Mohammed, who "directed Padilla to travel to the
United States for the purpose of blowing up apartment buildings, in
continued prosecution of Al Qaeda's war on terror against the United
States."
"After receiving further training, as well as cash, travel documents
and communication devices, Padilla flew to the United States in order
to carry out his accepted assignment," the ruling said.
Padilla landed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8,
2002. He was then arrested by FBI agents and sent to New York, where
he was held on a material witness warrant.
On June 9, 2002, Bush designated him an "enemy combatant" and he was
moved to the Navy brig in South Carolina.
In February, U.S. District Judge Henry F. Floyd, appointed two years
ago by Bush, ruled that the government must charge Padilla or set him
free. Stating that Americans have the right to due process of law, the
judge found that Padilla's "indefinite detention without trial"
violated his constitutional rights.
The appeals court panel said Friday that Padilla posed a real threat
of returning someday "to the battlefield against the United States"
and that his "detention "is thus necessary and appropriate."
The president, the ruling said, "is unquestionably authorized" to hold
him without charges or trial.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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