Posted on 07/12/2005 10:17:16 AM PDT by StoneGiant
Good that Glen has picked this up!
Ramzi Yousef (1993 WTC) and Terry Nichols (OKC) crossed paths in the Phillipines. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (9/11)was Yousef's uncle. It is interesting to note that Yousef entered the United States on an Iraqi passport and had been known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi". Another name that could be thrown into the mix is Abdul Rahman Yasin, a U.S. citizen who moved to Iraq in the 1960's and returned to the U.S. in 1992. After the 1993 WTC bombing, Yasin fled to Iraq and was given monthly salary and housing by Saddam Hussein's regime.
Well, the pictures match, but the only other "evidence" in all this is that no one can place, exactly, where Padilla was at the time of the bombing. Seems to me the quickest way to determine if it was, or was not him, was to try to prove he was elsewhere.
Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, the founder of the Philippines operations, traveled to the U.S. in late 1994, where he met with Benevolence's then-president Mohamed Loay Bayazid.
There are conflicting reports about when Padilla found Islam. Several anonymous government sources have told news organizations that he converted while in that South Florida prison. But several news stories indicate that he first started seeking out information about Islam during his stint at Taco Bell.
Padilla's boss, a Muslim, told reporters that young Jose asked him about where he could study Islam. Citing a workplace policy against discussing religion, the supervisor says he told Padilla to find a mosque through the yellow pages.
South Florida, and the Fort Lauderdale area in particular, has long been considered a center for radical and extremist Islam in the U.S., and several mosques and organizations in the area have been tied to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
One of the first people Jose Padilla met was Adham Hassoun, an outspoken Palestinian activist living in the area. Hassoun had recently quit his job as a computer programmer to oversee the opening of a Muslim charity in Plantation, Fla., five minutes from Padilla's Taco Bell.
The Benevolence International Foundation was new to the area and had only recently incorporated in the U.S. But the purported charity had existed for a couple of years in previous incarnations — with offices in Pakistan, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.
So he didn't have to go to the Philippines...he is connected through the Benevolance International Foundation in the Philippines.
This is discredited. Did not happen, there is no connection. Beck looked like an idiot running this story 3 YEARS AGO, and you look bad yourself reposting a thoroughly discredited story, 3 years later.
I remember going over this IN 2002!
Something else I just noticed in that article...
Padilla incurred violations like clockwork from the moment he emerged from prison until his license was suspended in 1997 (with the exception of a six-month quiet period around the time of the Oklahoma City bombing)
Hmmmm....
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,153966,00.html
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002217
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/1678779
ping for later
Do you have a way for me to check this out? Others seem to have many links that support this thread and the facts presented here. Thank you if you can help, but if not, why would you post a falsehood?
Interesting.
Linking to articles regarding Jayna Davis' investigations on OKC doesn't have any relevance to the question of Padilla's involvement.
Mind-numbed Robot, you were here on FR, when this crackpot theory was firsted offered up, and during the resulting discrediting of it. Padilla was a broke 24 year old Taco Bell employee ex-convict gangbanger at the time.
You do not present any facts to counter any of the points made in any of the articles posted.. Rather you begin to name call... I smell a liberal... :)
Please post any articles that discredited this theory
washingtonpost.com
Padilla Lawyer: Charge Him or Release Him
By LARRY O'DELL
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 19, 2005; 4:12 PM
RICHMOND, Va. -- A lawyer for Jose Padilla, an American accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb," went before a federal appeals court Tuesday and demanded the U.S. government either charge his client with a crime or set him free.
But a Bush administration lawyer told the court that the president must have authority to indefinitely detain suspected terrorists who come to the United States intent on killing civilians.
Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert suspected of being an al-Qaida operative, was seized in 2002 after flying from Pakistan to Chicago on what authorities said was a scouting mission for a plot to set off a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material. Padilla also is suspected of planning to blow up apartment buildings in several cities by filling them with natural gas.
President Bush declared Padilla an "enemy combatant," a designation that allows the military to hold someone indefinitely without charges. Padilla is in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., and has been held for the past three years.
At issue before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is whether Padilla _ an American seized on U.S. soil _ should have been designated an enemy combatant.
"I may be the first lawyer to stand here and say I'm asking for my client to be indicted by a federal grand jury," Padilla's lawyer, Andrew Patel, told a three-judge panel of the court, widely regarded as the most conservative in the nation.
Patel later told reporters that the government should "put up or shut up _ it's that simple."
In a packed courtroom under tight security, Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig pressed Bush administration lawyer Paul Clement on whether the government was suggesting that the battlefield in the war on terror now includes U.S. soil.
"I can say that. I can say it boldly," Clement said.
But Clement did not emphasize that point in his arguments, saying instead that Padilla can be held as an enemy combatant because he trained overseas before flying to the U.S. to carry out the mission. That is akin to crossing enemy lines to commit a "hostile act," Clement said.
"It would be very, very strange to say an intent on blowing up apartment buildings and killing U.S. citizens again is not a hostile act," he said.
Luttig also closely questioned Patel, suggesting his position that Padilla's case should be handled like any other criminal case "is a failure to recognize the real-world circumstances that can confront a president of the United States."
The judge offered a scenario in which the president is informed in the middle of the night that a suspected terrorist has just arrived in New York and is expected to detonate a bomb within minutes. Could the president have the military capture the suspect? Luttig asked.
Patel said he could, but that the suspect would have to be turned over to civilian authorities as soon as possible.
The 4th Circuit received the case after a South Carolina judge ruled that the government must charge Padilla with a crime or release him.
The same court two years ago upheld the president's right to detain another U.S. citizen designated as an enemy combatant, Yaser Esam Hamdi. However, Hamdi was released and flown to Saudi Arabia after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he could challenge his detention in U.S. courts.
A key difference in the two cases is that Hamdi was captured while fighting alongside the Taliban on the battlefield in Afghanistan, while Padilla was taken into custody in the United States.
The court usually takes several weeks to rule.
Off the wall. They're not that similar, and Padilla in any case would have been much younger at that time and wouldn't have looked at all like the photo.
I think the photo is either Mohammed Atta or another member of the Iraqi secret services. Padilla doesn't even look like the sketch - but Atta does.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.