Padilla gets 17 years, 4 months

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Miami Herald

BY JAY WEAVER
Jose Padilla, a man inextricably linked to the U.S. government's war on terror, was sentenced on Tuesday to 17 years and four months in prison on charges of participating in a South Florida-based plot to aid Islamic extremists in holy wars abroad.

Padilla, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen accused of training with the global terror group al Qaeda, stared blankly as federal Judge Marcia Cooke issued the punishment along with prison terms for his two co-defendants.

Padilla's mentor, Adham Amin Hassoun, a Palestinian who had met him at a Fort Lauderdale mosque in the 1990s, and Hassoun's colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a U.S. citizen of Jordanian descent, were sentenced to 16 years and nine months, and 12 years and 8 months, respectively.

Padilla was expected to get up to life in prison, while the two other defendants also were expected to receive lengthier prison sentences.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/388932.html

[annabanana]

1. Regardless of what he did.... OR what he "got".. the important thing to

remember is that he was unilaterally declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" by the President. At that point every protection he may have thought he had as an American Citizen went out the window. He had no Habeas Corpus protection, no right to a lawyer, no speedy trial required etc etc...

and never forget...

If it can happen to him, it can happen to you.

[stellanoir]

2. It is rumored that he was tortured into total catatonia.

I can't fathom how we have entirely lost our moral compass and our basic humanity.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

11. He is no longer a person, a human being.

They locked him in a confined cell, never letting him see the light of day for years.
The blindfolded him and deprived him of the ability to hear and see whenever out of his cell.
He has been evaluated and declared to have a damaged personality and psyche.
This bothers me deeply. I am embarrassed to be an American.

[Synnical]

23. Ditto that

I am beyond embarrassed and sad. Words escape me. Tears don't. :(

They tortured that man, were never able to indict him on the original charges, and held him without legal defense until the courts stepped in, finally.

Expected "Life in prison" - he's already in prison. A prison of his mind, brought on by "our" government.

[humbled_opinion]

3. I guess..

Since he actually never killed anyone but only plotted to the sentence is acceptable... I mean he could have a change of heart, right?

[Demeter]

4. There Is NOTHING Acceptable About this Case

and if there is a movement to free him or get a fair trial, I'm in!

[winter999]

5. So would you say he's completely innocent of the charges?

Just askin'

[Demeter]

6. I would say I don't Trust BushJustice, wholly owned subsidiary of BushWorld

about anything.

[JustDavid]

7. I think he means

that he should get a fair trial. Or at least I hope thats what he means. Surely no one would want a terrorist running free, right?.....if he's a terrorist.

[winter999]

8. Right. I'm just trying to get a feel of how many people

think he's innocent, how many people think he's guilty and should stay jailed, and how many people think he's guilty and should be freed. Maybe add a fourth, those who don't care if he's guilty or innocent and think he should be free no matter what.

[Hekate]

9. How about the man gets a Constitutional trial with right of habeas corpus?

How about Bush goes up for impeachment for violating the Constitution himself -- such as granting himself the power to unilaterally declare a person an "enemy combatant"?

No one will ever know the truth about Padilla now -- he's practically catatonic, by all accounts -- and the entire matter stinks to high heaven.

Hekate

[annabanana]

18. How about those who think we'll never know if he's guilty or not

because he never had a fair trial??

[mhatrw]

28. Guilty of what? He never hurt anyone like Bush Dept of Injustice hurt him.

Should he be on probation? Probably. On a watch list? For sure. On a no fly list? Yes.

What do you think is the appropriate penalty for thoughtcrime?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Who knows?

Given the horrible circumstances under which he was kept for so many years, they could have gotten him to confess to killing Abraham Lincoln if they'd wanted to.

He deserves to be released simply for the un-Constitutional torture that he's been put through. Remember, he didn't actually DO anything.

[annabanana]

17. maybe maybe not... immaterial to my concerns. . .

He is an American Citizen whose rights were summarily removed. It could be either of us.

[mhatrw]

27. Innocent of what charges? Thoughtcrime?

Do you think 3 years of torture, a wiped mind, and another 14 years in jail is the appropriate penalty for thoughtcrime?

[midnight]

24. Good. Someone with some common sense.

[superconnected]

12. We don't even know if he plotted.

Nothing about him is really known and since there was no fair trial I guess we should just trust the goverment(bush).

[mhatrw]

26. He never "plotted" anybody's murder.

Please produce a shred of evidence that this badly used pawn "plotted" any murders.

[otherlander]

10. We have met the enemy

and he is us.

[chelsea0011]

13. And Michael Fortier, the third conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing,

only got 12 years for an actual bombing.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

14. oh man

that is just wrong.

[jaybeat]

15. For what? Being nuttier than a snickers bar?

That's rich. Especially since his, er, treatment in captivity is surely what made him that way.

I say we subject Georgie to the same and see him put together a coherent sentence... 'course, he can't exactly do that NOW, so I guess that wouldn't prove much... <sigh>

[nolabels]

20. So you think it has something to do with a PAYDAY?

Oh heck, oh mighty, the candy-bar analogy seems quite apropos. When debating on prosecuting people with mental health issues i often go into conundrums.

To think a dude such as * probably needs both sides of that equation can really get ya thinking. But really, just which one would seem most humane to administer first would i be wondering :shrug:


Did psychologists help the U.S. torture?
http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2007/06/23/psychologists/

[randymaine]

19. I head in Air America that he lost his mind due to torture

Poor kid. We will never know if he did what the US claims he did.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

21. I wonder how much time Siljander will get...

I'll bet he doesn't even go to jail.

[RedSock]

22. the US govt admitted years ago he was a nobody

the US govt admitted years ago he was a nobody

...

this is total complete and utter bullshit

[mhatrw]

25. What a travesty. Seventeen years & a wiped mind for thoughtcrime.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/74590

The former gang member and convert to Islam -- whose arrest in May 2002 was trumpeted by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft as that of a "known terrorist," who was "exploring a plan" to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city -- was once regarded as one of the most dangerous terrorists ever apprehended on American soil. Almost six years later, as he received his sentence, he was not actually accused of lifting a finger to harm even a single US citizen.

While this is shocking enough in and of itself, Padilla's sentence - in what at least one perceptive commentator called "the most important case of our lifetimes" - is particularly shocking because it sends a clear message to the President of the United States that he can, if he wishes (and as he did with Padilla), designate a US citizen as an "enemy combatant," hold him without charge or trial in a naval brig for 43 months, and torture him - through the use of prolonged sensory deprivation and solitary confinement - to such an extent that, as the psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty explained after spending 22 hours with Padilla, "What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being's mind." ...

As if this were not worrying enough, it was what happened after Padilla's 43-month ordeal that sealed the President's impunity to torture US citizens at will. When it seemed that his case was within reach of the US Supreme Court, the government transferred him into the US legal system, deposited him in a normal prison environment, dropped all mention of the "dirty bomb" plot, and charged him, based on his association with two alleged terrorist facilitators, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, with participating in a Florida-based plot to aid Islamic extremists in holy wars abroad. When the case came to court last summer, the judge, Marcia Cooke, airbrushed Padilla's torture from history, insisting that it could not be discussed at all, and, after a trial regarded as farcical by many observers, Padilla and his co-defendants were duly found guilty. ...

Today's sentencing, after an unusually protracted two-week debate, has apparently brought the whole sordid saga to an end, with Padilla's torture only mentioned briefly in passing by Judge Cooke, who noted, "I do find that the conditions were so harsh that they warrant consideration." Nevertheless, he received a longer sentence than either of his co-defendants (who were sentenced to 15 years and eight months, and 12 years and eight months, respectively), even though two jurors admitted to the Miami Herald that the jury as a whole "struggled to convict Padilla because the panel initially viewed him as a bit player in the scheme to aid Islamic extremists, unlike his co-defendants." ...

They certainly had a point. While the conviction of Hassoun and Jayyousi was based on coded conversations in 126 phone calls intercepted by the FBI over a number of years, Padilla was included in only seven of those phone calls. Groomed by his mentor, Hassoun, he had traveled to the Middle East and, in 2000, had applied to attend a military training camp in Afghanistan, using the name Abu Abdallah al-Muhajir. His application form, which, according to a government expert, bore his fingerprints, was apparently discovered during a CIA raid on an alleged al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan, but although the prosecution presented an alleged al-Qaeda graduation list with his Muslim name on it during the sentencing, they had been unable to provide any evidence during the trial that he had actually attended the training camp in Afghanistan. ...

In the end, Padilla's conviction hinged on the jury's determination that he had "joined the terrorism conspiracy in the United States before leaving the country." This was based on a single recorded conversation, in July 1997, in which he stated that he was ready to join a jihad overseas.