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Backgrounder: Jose PadillaINTELWIRE.com CLICK HERE FOR UPDATES ON OKC BOMBING CONNECTIONS Current status: Detained as designated enemy combatant at the order of the president of the United States and denied access to legal counsel. No current criminal charges pending. U.S. Supreme Court heard Padilla's challenge seeking due process rights on April 28, 2004. A decision has not yet been reached. Padilla was allowed to meet with lawyers in a non-privileged setting, under close military supervision, in March 2004.Date of Birth: 10/18/1970 Place of Birth: Brooklyn, NY AKA: Abdullah Al Muhajir, Ibrahim Padilla. Key Points:Jose Padilla was arrested in May 2002 as he entered the U.S. at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. According to the State Department, Padilla applied for a replacement passport at the US Consulate General in Karachi, Pakistan, in February 2002. State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security investigated Padilla's activities in Pakistan at the request of the consular official in Karachi, and Padilla's travel to the U.S. was tracked as a result. 
Padilla was apparently detained in part on the basis of information surrendered by Abu Zubaydah, a captured al Qaeda lieutenant who worked with Padilla in Pakistan. At the time of his arrest, Padilla was carrying about $10,000 in cash. According to Zubaydah, Padilla had been tasked with finding radioactive material to build a radiological dispersion device, a so-called "dirty bomb." Padilla was sent to the U.S. at the direct order of September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, according to numerous media reports. In June 2003, Padilla was designated an enemy combatant at the order of President George W. Bush. As as result of this designation, he was removed from the U.S. criminal justice system, where he was being held as a material witness, and transferred to a Navy brig in South Carolina. He has been held there since June 2002 without access to legal counsel or family visits. He has not been formally charged with a crime. When Padilla was initially arrested, he was assigned to a court-appointed attorney named Donna Newman. After the enemy combatant designation, Newman sued to be allowed to see Padilla. The federal government opposed her request, arguing that allowing Padilla access to counsel would interfere with his interrogation, which the government claimed was a matter of national security. The government argued that the president was authorized to deny access to counsel on the basis of the enemy combatant designation and that the U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over Padilla due to the presidential order. After losing the case in district court and on appeal, and being ordered to release Padilla to the civilian court system, the U.S. government announced that will request an expedited appeal to the Supreme Court, to be filed on or about Jan. 20, 2004. Background:Padilla was raised in Chicago, where he became involved in the gang scene at an early age. He was arrested at age 14 in a brutal murder and robbery committed by several gang members. Padilla moved with his family to South Florida after being released from juvenile detention in 1988. In 1991, he was arrested in Florida after a road rage incident in which he pointed a loaded gun at a police officer. He served 10 months in prison. Although several published reports have suggested that Padilla converted to Islam in prison, this does not appear to be the case. (All the reports have been attributed to anonymous government sources.) What seems more likely is that Padilla formed a favorable impression of Islam as a result of his prison experience, but several well-sourced news reports indicated that he first expressed interest in actually converting in 1993, while working at a Taco Bell in Davie, Fl., near Fort Lauderdale. The New York Times in 2002 quoted Padilla's manager at the restaurant as saying that Padilla inquired about Islam while working at the store in early 1993. According to government sources quoted in South Florida newspapers, Padilla may have been introduced to Islam by Adham Hassoun, a local Palestinian activist who in early 1993 opened an office of the Benevolence International Foundation in Plantation, Fla., about five minutes from Padilla's workplace. The Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) has been designated as a terrorist organization by the federal government, which charges that the Islamic charity is a front for al Qaeda money laundering operations. Hassoun was arrested shortly after Padilla on an immigration charge and is currently fighting deportation in South Florida. He has not been charged with a terrorism-related crime, and he has denied any ties to al Qaeda and any wrongdoing in general. Adham Hassoun has been charged with illegally possessing a firearm, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which also reported that, in a separate proceeding "Immigration Judge Neale Foster found Hassoun participated in an assassination plot, recruited a "jihad fighter," donated money to charities under investigation for possible links to terrorism and belonged to an international terrorist organization called Al-Gama Al-Islamiyya, according to Hassoun's petition for release to a federal district judge. That petition was denied." Al-Gama Al-Islamiyya, also known as the Islamic Group, was led by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of a New York City-based al Qaeda cell. One member of that cell, Clement Rodney Hampton-El, recruited U.S. military veterans for al Qaeda, as reported in an investigative report exclusive to Intelwire. 
Padilla's formal conversion appears to have taken place in 1994, when he took the Muslim name Ibrahim. When he was arrested, he had taken the Muslim name Abdullah Al-Muhajir. His subsequent court filings have been under the name Jose Padilla, which is by far the most common name used in news accounts. Padilla left the U.S. in 1998. According to most accounts, he traveled to Egypt first, where he was to study Arabic, but found his way to Saudi Arabia and to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions and al Qaeda soon thereafter, according to an affidavit by Michael Mobbs, a Defense Department adviser. After connecting with al Qaeda in Pakistan, Padilla appears to have answered directly to Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. CBS News reported in 2002 that Hassoun and Padilla had been in telephone contact shortly before Padilla returned to the U.S, and BIF was based in Chicago, where Padilla flew into the U.S. Padilla is of Puerto Rican descent. His race has been identified in various government filings and criminal proceedings as white, Latino or black. Analysis:It's unclear exactly how important Padilla was to al Qaeda. The only official release of information concerning Padilla's activities with al Qaeda is the unclassified version of the Mobbs Declaration, a filing made by the federal government citing classified sources to advance an argument for holding Padilla incommunicado and without due process. Various news reports have depicted him as relatively unintelligent, a conclusion somewhat reinforced by some of his criminal records. Some of these accounts were clearly leaked by the federal government, which sought to downplay Padilla's importance after his transfer to enemy combatant status. But the extreme measures taken to incarcerate Padilla and isolate him from counsel (and by extension the public) would seem to indicate that the government is taking him very seriously. Furthermore, reports that Padilla worked directly with Khalid Shaikh and Abu Zubaydah would seem to indicate prominent status in al Qaeda proper. However, without further information, it is difficult to evaluate his status usefully. Key Documents:Jose Padilla's 1991 Arrest Record (HTML, INTELWIRE exclusive) Pres. Bush's Order to hold Padilla as enemy combatant (PDF) Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (PDF) Unclassified Mobbs Declaration (PDF) Appeals Court Order for Padilla's release to civilian authorities (PDF) Transcript of Oral Arguments Before Appeals Court (PDF) Key Dates:
Related ArticleThere have been widely disseminated comparisons of Jose Padilla to John Doe 2, a never apprehended suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing. INTELWIRE has extensively investigated this premise. As of this writing, INTELWIRE has been unable to confirm or refute theories tying Padilla to Oklahoma City. An anaylsis of available data disproves some popularly held notions while supporting others. | Detailed report. |