Jan 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday reinstated the most serious charge -- of murder-conspiracy -- against Jose Padilla, whom Washington says is an al Qaeda operative and once accused of planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" in a major U.S. city.

Here are five facts about Padilla.

* He was born on Oct. 18, 1970, in Brooklyn, New York to parents who had moved from Puerto Rico.

* He later moved to Chicago, where he joined the Latin Kings street gang. Arrested several times, he converted to Islam while in prison for firing a gun during a traffic dispute and moved to Egypt afterward.

* Federal agents arrested Padilla in Chicago on May 8, 2002, as he returned from a trip to Pakistan and Egypt. The Bush administration accused him of planning to explode a radioactive bomb, although he was never charged in any bomb plot.

* On June 9, 2002, President George W. Bush issued an order to detain Padilla as an "enemy combatant," and he was transferred to a military brig in South Carolina, where he was held for 3-1/2 years without charge.

* Padilla was turned over to civilian custody in 2006, but his lawyers say 1,307 days of extreme isolation, abuse and interrogation at the military prison -- where they said he was tortured and force-fed psychedelic drugs -- left him too mentally impaired to stand trial. They had sought to have the charges dropped.

AlertNet news is provided by

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit                                                                                  Permalink