Jose Padilla's New Indictment Based, in Part, on USA PATRIOT Act (updated link to indictment)
By Andrew Cochran
Alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla was indicted on new charges that he conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas, along with 4 others. The indictment links Padilla to another pre-existing indictment of an alleged terrorist cell, marking the first time that Padilla has been charged in connection with terrorism activities and not just as an "enemy combatant." The indictment alleges that Padilla traveled overseas filled out a terrorist training camp application and went to Afghanistan to so train. Another important development in this case is that it cites declassified foreign intelligence intercepts as a basis for the case, an action not available to terrorism case prosecutors until the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001. So this indictment provides the Bush Administration and PATRIOT Act supporters with additional justification for the reauthorization of the Act - see Dennis Lormel's and Michael Kraft's posts on that issue. The new indictment renders irrelevant a pending Supreme Court showdown over the enemy combatant issue, as Padilla will now be under the custody of the Justice Department for this case.
You can read the full indictment here courtesy of the AP (Acrobat file), and you can read the DOJ press release on the indictment below. The indictment cites the defendants' support of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, leader of the Egyptian-based Islamic Jihad, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 WTC bombings (in a case led by current CIA leak case prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald). Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted about Rahman's attorney, Lynne Stewart, who was convicted for smuggling messages from him to his followers. I posted on October 3 about the Treasury Department's designation of seven of his followers, and I gave a brief history of the group.