Padilla convicted on terrorism support charges

Seven fingerprints
The key piece of physical evidence was a five-page form Padilla supposedly filled out in July 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan, which would link the other two defendants as well to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization.

The form, recovered by the CIA in 2001 in Afghanistan, contains seven of Padilla’s fingerprints and several other personal identifiers, such as his birthdate and his ability to speak Spanish, English and Arabic.

“He provided himself to al-Qaida for training to learn to murder, kidnap and maim,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier in closing arguments.

Shirley Henderson / AP A courtroom drawing shows Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier, left, and defendants Adham Amin Hassoun, second from left, Jose Padilla, center, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, far right, in federal court.

Padilla’s lawyers insisted the form was far from conclusive and denied that he was a “star recruit,” as prosecutors claimed, of the North American support cell intending to become a terrorist. Padilla’s attorneys said he traveled to Egypt in September 1998 to learn Islam more deeply and become fluent in Arabic.

“His intent was to study, not to murder,” said Padilla attorney Michael Caruso.

James Cohen, criminal law professor at Fordham University, said the form likely cinched the case for many jurors.

“The fingerprints on the application, combined with the claim that Padilla’s purpose was humanitarian when various Muslim charities are accused of being mere fronts for terrorism, adds up to a difficult defense,” Cohen said.

Central to the investigation were some 300,000 FBI wiretap intercepts collected from 1993 to 2001, mainly involving Padilla’s co-defendants Hassoun and Jayyousi and others. Most of the conversations were in Arabic and purportedly used code such as “tourism” and “football” for violent jihad or “zucchini” and “eggplant” instead of military weapons or ammunition.

The bulk of these conversations and other evidence concerned efforts in the 1990s by Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, to assist Muslims in conflict zones such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

Hassoun is a computer programmer of Palestinian descent who was born in Lebanon. Jayyousi is a civil engineer and public schools administrator who is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Jordan. Jayyousi also ran an organization called American Worldwide Relief and published a newsletter called the Islam Report that provided details of battles and political issues in the Muslim world.

“It wasn’t a terrorist operation. It was a relief operation,” said Jayyousi attorney William Swor.

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