[FFIGHTER]

They will appeal, and even so they just release him and book him.

[Kirkwood]

Makes my job protecting law abiding citizens a lot tougher. This just encourages terrorism.

[highlander_UW]

But they didn't say where they had to release him. I suggest perhaps either Antarctica, or far up a hillside in Borneo.

[Recovering_Democrat]

BULL***T!
He is being held as an enemy combatant. The Feds will appeal this and the scumball will be kept in the brig. These judges need to be tossed in with him, if you ask me.

[Peach]

Hopefully they'll charge him. Throw everything but the kitchen sink at him. Something is sure to stick.

[medscribe]

Do these judges realize they're handing the GOP a supermajority in the Senate next year with these absolutely atrocious decisiosn?!?

[Republicus2001]

9th court I presume?

[PISANO]

The SAD truth is that if Jose Padilla is released and carrys out a dirty bomb attack on the United States these JUDGES are held completely harmless from any consequences. Same holds true for the Clinton appointed judge that released Hinkley. Something not quite right about this..........JUST a thought!!

[JesseHousman]

Pedilla had spent his life chasing respect but rarely earning it—marking a dreary passage from a Chicago gang to juvenile detention to grownup prison to a Florida fast-food job and, finally, to a new life as a Muslim in the Middle East.

There he was, in Pakistan just six months after the Sept. 11 attacks, presenting an ominous proposal to Abu Zubaydah, Osama bin Laden's operations chief.

Senior U.S. officials stated that Padilla, conducting research on the Internet, had come across instructions for building a nuclear bomb—"an H-bomb," as a top official described it.

Padilla took them to Abu Zubaydah and other al-Qaeda planners and said he wanted to detonate such a weapon in the U.S. "He was trying to build something that would attain a nuclear yield," says a senior Bush Administration official monitoring Padilla's case.

In response, Abu Zubaydah cautioned his eager job applicant to think smaller—to get training and attack America with a "dirty bomb."

"They sent him to the U.S. to see what he could do—plan and execute," the official says. What he did was get arrested as soon as he stepped off the plane on May 8, having come full circle, back to Chicago, the site of his first encounters with the law.

In his early teens, Padilla joined the Latin Disciples, a mostly Puerto Rican gang. When he was 14, Padilla and several friends assaulted and robbed three men. When one victim gave chase, one of the other boys stabbed him in the stomach, according to court records. Padilla helped the boy throw the man to the ground and then kicked him in the head. The pair took cash from the victim's pockets and left him in an alley, where he died. Padilla was convicted of aggravated battery and armed robbery and went to juvenile detention until he was 18.


At a Taco Bell in Davie, Fla., Padilla found jobs with and a mentor in the restaurant's manager, Mohammad Javed, a Pakistani immigrant. "They were poor but trying to make something of their lives—buy a car, establish a good credit rating, things like that," Javed says.

Javed, a Muslim who now runs an Islamic elementary school in Broward County, insists he did not proselytize to his young employees. Padilla, began asking him how to convert.

Padilla began a 10-year odyssey, moving ever closer to radical elements within Islam. In South Florida, as many as 60,000 Muslims attend two dozen mosques and religious sites, spanning the spectrum of ideology. A subculture of extremism has taken hold in certain pockets.

"Hamas and Hizballah have a wide network here," says a prominent Islamic community leader. "These are people who are convinced that the West is evil and America is 'Darul Harb,'" the Place of War. The community leader, who requested anonymity, describes a growing radicalized cadre of mostly Middle Eastern men who aggressively recruit young Muslims. These men often drive BMWs and Mercedes and lure followers with money, he says.

In 1994 Padilla converted formally to Islam at al-Iman mosque in Sunrise. The imam at the mosque at that time, who would have overseen Padilla's conversion, was Raed Awad—the former Florida fund raiser for the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity that the Bush Administration has linked to Hamas. In December the Texas-based offices of the foundation were raided and shuttered by the Treasury Department. Attempts to reach Awad, who has since left the mosque, were unsuccessful. Awad has denied any link between the charity and Hamas. Law-enforcement sources say the FBI is interested in learning more about the role he played in Padilla's conversion.

Around the time of his conversion, Padilla legally changed his name to Ibrahim. In 1996 he married Stultz, who had also converted. He started wearing a red-and-white kaffiyeh, or headdress, and expensive watches and clothes, although he was unemployed for much of the time. In 1998 Padilla suddenly left his wife and moved to Egypt, telling acquaintances at al-Iman mosque that he was going to learn Arabic.

Padilla has since told investigators that his travels were sponsored by "friends" interested in his education. Using the name Abdullah al-Muhajir, he moved to a suburb of Cairo. But he was frustrated, officials say, by the secular, state-controlled brand of Islam taught in mainstream schools. He plunged into the extremist underground, where he was advised to study in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He moved to Pakistan, where, like many militants, he married the widow of a jihadist. Last year Padilla met with Abu Zubaydah for the first time, U.S. officials say. In spring of this year, he met with Abu Zubaydah again—and allegedly made his nuclear-bomb pitch.

In March Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan. A month later, he hinted to his FBI and CIA interrogators that he had talked to people who wanted to put together a dirty bomb, says a U.S. official. He provided no details, but agents started comparing intelligence as well as material from safe houses they had raided. Out popped Padilla's name, the official says. They then matched the name to a passport photo of Padilla and checked the identification with Abu Zubaydah, who confirmed it. The chase was on.

The CIA caught up with Padilla in Cairo in early May, where officers learned he was planning to fly to the U.S. When he boarded his connection in Zurich, bound for Chicago, he was trailed by FBI agents. FBI officials, including Director Robert Mueller, had debated whether to continue following Padilla in hopes of turning up accomplices. But they could not risk losing him, sources tell Time, as they had a couple of times during his far-flung journey, so they took the more cautious approach. After Padilla deplaned in Chicago, customs officers pulled him aside not far from the baggage carousel. In a secondary screening room, FBI agents identified themselves and took Padilla into custody. He appeared neither surprised nor angry, says a federal agent. During the next month, the feds tried and apparently failed to build a case against Padilla that would stand up in court. On Sunday, June 9, the day before Padilla could have been released under laws protecting U.S. citizens from indefinite detention, President Bush approved Padilla's reclassification as an "enemy combatant." He was transferred after midnight to the brig of a South Carolina naval base.

[KriegerGeist]

Release John Hinkley, then release Jose Padilla [Abdullah al-Muhajir], then all the prisoners at Gitmo and lastly Saddam Hussein himself.

Think that will satisfy these liberal Federal Court Justices?

[PISANO]

Another appeals court just ruled that the GITMO enemy combatants MUST receive LEGAL rights ie......they MUST get lawyers. 911 has been TOTALLY FORGOTTEN!!

[Redbob]

Where and when?
That's all we need to know.

[fightu4it]

Don't get your blood pressure up, it ain't gonna happen.

The guy was planning to set off a dirty nuke in the US for Christ sake. Do you think he is every going to see the light of day again? People would be lining up for a chance to whack him if they turned him loose!

[Lazamataz]

This may be bad news in this case, but it is dynamite, wonderful news for the rest of us.

You can't go around holding Americans seized on American soil indefinitely and without a charge. You just can't.

[tcuoohjohn]

Jose Padilla , whether we like it or not, is a US citizen. The first thing that was said about the Patriot Act was that its special provisions do not apply to US citizens.

Apparently, that wasn't true. I am somewhat chary of a law that can be incrementally expanded at the whim of a bureaucrat particularly when it was passed with assurances that that would never happen.

Either charge Mr. Padilla or cut him loose. It's the law.

[tcuoohjohn]

Either they have the evidence to charge him or they don't. If they do quit playing games and charge him. If they don't have the goods to charge him and take to trial then his arrest and detention is a fraud.

The Judges made the right decision. Your cannot selectively apply the Constitution to only those defendants you like.

[Bob J]

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[Sandy]

Bottom line (from the opinion):

Based primarily on the plain language of the Non-Detention Act but also on its legislative history and the Supreme Court’s interpretation, we conclude that the Act applies to all detentions and that precise and specific language authorizing the detention of American citizens is required to override its prohibition. [emphasis mine]

[Action-America]

This is just one small victory on the road to returning the US to Constitutional government and forcing Dubya to adhere to the limits of the Constitution, that he swore to protect and defend. But, much more needs to be done, to reign in Dubya and Ashcroft. There is still the possibility that this ruling may be overturned in the SCOTUS and there are still the many Constitutional abuses of the (ANTI)Patriot Act to deal with.

At least for now and in this one case, the Court has rightly restored our system of checks and balances, which are there to protect the people from a President, who would be King.

 

[Argus]

It didn't say where he should be released. I suggest just outside the main Shiite mosque in Basra right after Friday prayers, with a sign around his neck in Arabic reading "Shiites suck - I love Saddam".