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MIAMI -- It's been nearly five years since then-Attorney General John Ashcroft declared the United States had thwarted an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major city and had arrested a "known terrorist," Jose Padilla. Ashcroft suggested the plot could have caused "mass death and injury" and said President Bush had designated Padilla, a U.S. citizen, as an enemy combatant who would be held in indefinite military custody rather than face civilian charges. "He was involved in planning future terrorist attacks on American civilians in the United States," Ashcroft said in June 2002, while the jittery...

MIAMI - A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a key terrorism charge, the only one carrying a potential life sentence, against alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with federal prosecutors in Miami that the charge that the U.S. citizen and his two co-defendants conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas did not duplicate other counts in the indictment. The Atlanta-based court reversed a decision last summer by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who said the three charges in the indictment contained nearly identical elements and could subject...

WASHINGTON - "Dirty Bomb" suspect Jose Padilla, held by the U.S. as an enemy combatant for more than three years, has been indicted on federal charges in Miami, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was expected to discuss the indictment at a news conference in Washington. Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert, has been held as an "enemy combatant" in Defense Department custody for more than three years. The Bush administration had resisted calls to charge and try him in civilian courts. The indictment avoids a Supreme Court showdown. Padilla's lawyers had asked justices to review his...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday sided with the Bush administration and reversed a judge’s order that the government charge or free “dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has the authority to detain a U.S. citizen closely associated with al Qaeda. U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., ruled in March that the government cannot hold Padilla indefinitely as an “enemy combatant,” a designation President Bush gave him in 2002. The government views Padilla as a militant who planned attacks on...

Breaking...

Forget the small fry: the big guys are still out there By Mark Steyn (Filed: 16/06/2002) By common consent, the "dirty bomb" story bombed. At the beginning of last week, John Ashcroft, the US Attorney-General, announced that the authorities had apprehended an American citizen, Abdullah al-Muhajir, formerly Jose Padilla, for plotting to explode a "dirty bomb", which, as Mr Ashcroft helpfully explained, "is highly toxic to humans and can cause mass death and injury". He was being detained "for the safety of all Americans". The Dow Jones immediately dropped 80 points on the announcement, while the rest of America gave...

Left’s Next Cause Célèbre: Taliban Jose FrontPageMagazine.com | June 12, 2002JOSE PADILLA, aka Abdullah al Muhajir, should be an instant folk hero among the American left. For an ideology that craves victims, he’s a twofer—Muslim and Hispanic. His ethnicity alone makes him far more compelling than John Walker Lindh, a white kid, and a rich one at that. Unlike Taliban John, Taliban Jose has serious mass-market appeal: The reformed gangbanger found religion behind bars and set out to see the world, only to be busted on a technicality by The Man when he returned to the U.S. True, he’s also...

The Bush administration came under fire from civil rights groups yesterday for its decision to hold the suspected "dirty bomb" plotter in military custody and deny him access to civilian courts. The American Civil Liberties Union, among others, said that if the case against Abdullah al-Muhajir, formerly known as Jose Padilla, was as serious as the government claimed, there was no reason not to charge him in the normal way and grant him full access to a lawyer. The criticism is the latest in a long list of complaints over the American government's apparently cavalier attitude towards constitutional rights in...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Swiss Probe Possible Padilla Visits Associated Press Online INTERNATIONAL NEWS June 11, 2002 Tuesday 9:42 AM Eastern Time BERN, Switzerland (AP) Swiss officials are investigating whether the key suspect in an alleged plot to set off a "dirty" bomb in the United States made several visits to Switzerland, an official said Tuesday. Hansjuerg Mark Wiedmer, spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor's Office, said investigators from the office and from the Swiss federal police began their investigation at the end of May in cooperation with...

The American gang kid who now calls himself Abdullah al Muhajir, accused of plotting radioactive terrorism against his country, lived in South Florida from 1990 to 1998. He landed in the Broward County Jail. He converted to Islam here.He also liked fast cars. He had his real name, Jose, tattooed on his right arm. He possessed a silver .38-caliber revolver and a hair-trigger temper.''He started to go for his gun when I went to arrest him,'' said Sunrise police Lt. Charles Vitale, who vividly recalled a 1991 road rage incident. ``I'm not surprised to hear he got in more trouble....

<p>WASHINGTON — The American accused of plotting with Al Qaeda terrorists to detonate a "dirty bomb" to spread radioactive material, possibly targeting Washington, had at least one accomplice now detained by authorities, Fox News has learned.</p> <p>Law enforcement sources told Fox News another man named Benjamin Ahmed Mohammed was implicated in the plot and was taken into custody in Pakistan "recently," perhaps late last month. One official said he would continue to be detained in Pakistan and there are currently no plans to bring him to the United States.</p>