NYT : Padilla Jury to Start Deliberations

Padilla Jury to Start Deliberations

By ABBY GOODNOUGH | Published: August 15, 2007

MIAMI, Aug. 14 — Jurors in the terrorism trial of Jose Padilla will begin deliberations on Wednesday, after hearing Mr. Padilla’s chief public defender say the government failed to prove Mr. Padilla is a would-be terrorist.

The closing arguments of the defender, Michael Caruso, and a brief government rebuttal were the last statements the jury heard in a closely watched three-month trial meant to showcase the Bush administration’s efforts to control terrorism.

Mr. Padilla and two co-defendants are charged with conspiring to “murder, kidnap and maim” people overseas.

Mr. Caruso said Tuesday that the government had not produced any hard evidence that Mr. Padilla had filled out an application to attend a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He said the government had buckled under pressure to hunt down terrorists after Sept. 11, 2001, and unjustly pursued Mr. Padilla, an American who converted to Islam.

The lawyer reproached prosecutors for showing a photo of Mr. Padilla in a checked Arab headdress, telling the jury, “They picked this picture to scare you.”

Mr. Caruso presented different photos, of a smiling Mr. Padilla holding his baby sons. He also pointed out Mr. Padilla’s mother in the courtroom and repeatedly said he had moved to the Middle East in 1998 solely to study Arabic and Islam.

“I defy the government to somehow argue that Jose had the intent to commit cold-blooded murder,” Mr. Caruso said.

The government maintains that Mr. Padilla’s co-defendants, Adham Hassoun, a Lebanese-born computer programmer, and Kifah Jayyousi, a Jordanian-born engineer, had sent money, supplies and recruits abroad to assist “global jihad.”

The prosecutors describe Mr. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who met Mr. Hassoun at a mosque in Broward County, Fla., as their recruit.

Mr. Padilla, 36, was arrested in 2002 and described as an operative of Al Qaeda plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the United States. He was detained in a military brig in South Carolina for more than three years, but was transferred to civilian custody here last year, after the Supreme Court considered stepping into the case.

At that point, Mr. Padilla was added to an existing terrorism conspiracy case against Mr. Hassoun and Mr. Jayyousi. The bomb charges are not part of this Miami case, and lawyers have not been allowed to mention them in the trial.

On Tuesday, Mr. Caruso sought to disassociate Mr. Padilla from the other defendants. The government secretly recorded thousands of their phone conversations from 1993 to 2001.

Mr. Padilla participated in seven wiretapped conversations presented at trial.

Prosecutors say Mr. Hassoun and Mr. Jayyousi used code words like “football” and “zucchini” to discuss plans to help violent jihad in places like Chechnya, Kosovo and Somalia. But, Mr. Caruso reminded jurors, they never said Mr. Padilla used such code.

Mr. Caruso also made a point of contrasting Mr. Padilla with the other defendants, emphasizing that he was younger, had less education and was a recent convert to Islam who did not speak fluent Arabic.

He even described Mr. Padilla as “slow” and reminded the jury that Mr. Padilla had worked at a Chicken Plus fast-food restaurant in Broward County before leaving for Egypt.

“These men are more different than they are alike,” Mr. Caruso said.

He said the lone government witness who described Mr. Padilla’s past behavior, a man who had attended the same Broward mosque, had described him as solitary, his head often buried in a Spanish-language Koran.

Mr. Padilla’s lawyers did not present character witnesses. In fact, they passed up their chance to present any evidence or witnesses on his behalf.

Mr. Caruso did not explain why on Tuesday, but he repeatedly said the government had the burden of proof. The lawyer focused on the training camp application that the government says Mr. Padilla filled out under an alias.

He conceded that seven of Mr. Padilla’s fingerprints were on the document, which the C.I.A. recovered in Afghanistan in 2001. But the fingerprints are on just the first page and the back of the last page, suggesting, Mr. Caruso said, that Mr. Padilla had merely handled the form, and had not filled it out.

He also pointed out that a palm print was found next to the signature line on the form, but that the government never requested Mr. Padilla’s palm print to see whether it matched.

“They were not trying to find the truth,” Mr. Caruso said. “They were trying to create a case.”

Yet he did leave open the possibility that Mr. Padilla had attended the Qaeda camp. He reminded the jury that a government witness who admitted attending a Qaeda camp testified that his intent was not to learn violence.

“Not everyone who attended the camp had the intent to murder,” Mr. Caruso said. “Talk about that when you’re back in the jury room.”