U.S. court reinstates key Padilla charge
Source: Reuters
(Adds detail, byline) By Jane Sutton MIAMI, Jan 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court reinstated the most serious charge against alleged al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla on Tuesday, reviving a murder-conspiracy count that could send the former "enemy combatant" to prison for life. The government accused Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen, with being part of a North American support cell that provided money and recruits to global Islamist extremists. A federal judge in Miami had dismissed the murder-conspiracy charge on grounds that it duplicated two other counts against him in the high-profile terrorism case, and therefore violated the constitutional ban on punishing someone twice for the same offense. The government appealed and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta reversed the ruling on Tuesday. It said that since Padilla theoretically could have committed one of the alleged offenses without committing the other, the charges did not duplicate. "Although they may appear to be nested within one another, each charge stands alone and each requires proof of independent elements," the appeals court said. The reinstated charge accused Padilla of conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim people in a foreign country and carries a penalty of life imprisonment. The other two charges against him, conspiracy and aiding terrorists abroad, carry a total possible sentence of 20 years in prison. Padilla was arrested at O'Hare Airport in Chicago in May 2002 as he returned from a trip to Egypt and Pakistan and charged with plotting to set off a radioactive bomb in the United States. President George W. Bush declared him an "enemy combatant" and sent him to a military prison, where he was held for 3-1/2 years. While a challenge to the president's authority to order him held without charges was pending in the Supreme Court, Padilla was indicted in Florida and transferred to civilian custody. He is schedule to go to trial on April 16 along with two co-defendants, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, who also had murder-conspiracy charges against them reinstated in Tuesday's ruling. Defense lawyers alleged that Padilla was tortured in the military prison and subjected to isolation and sensory deprivation that left him too mentally impaired to stand trial. The government denies that and the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, is awaiting results of a psychiatric exam by Bureau of Prison doctors. Cooke, the judge who had dismissed the murder-conspiracy charge, is a former federal prosecutor whom Bush nominated to the bench.
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