Closings Set in Padilla Terror Trial

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Closings Set in Padilla Terror Trial

Monday August 13, 2007 1:01 PM

By CURT ANDERSON

Associated Press Writer

MIAMI (AP) - Five years and three months after he was arrested
and accused of involvement in an al-Qaida “dirty bomb” plot,
Jose Padilla's fate will soon rest in the hands of jurors.

Prosecutors were scheduled Monday to begin closing arguments
in the trial of Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun
and Kifah Wael Jayyousi on terrorism support charges that do
not include the “dirty bomb” allegations.

Prosecutors want jurors to convict Padilla largely on a five-page
“mujahedeen data form” he supposedly filled out in 2000 to
attend an al-Qaida terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. The
36-year-old U.S. citizen was held as an enemy combatant for
3 years.

The closing arguments mark the final phase of an unprecedented
legal journey for Padilla, who has been in custody since his May 8,
2002 arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

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