José Padilla (born October 18, 1970), also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir ( ) or Muhajir Abdullah, is a United States citizen who was convicted in a federal court of aiding terrorists.
Padilla was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002, on suspicion of plotting a radiological bomb ("dirty bomb") attack. He was detained as a material witness until June 9, 2002, when President George W. Bush designated him an enemy combatant and, arguing that he was not entitled to trial in civilian courts, had him transferred to a military prison in South Carolina. Padilla was held for three and a half years as an enemy combatant. Upon pressure and lawsuits from civil liberties groups, he was transferred to a civilian jail in 2006.
In August 2007, a federal jury found him guilty of conspiring to commit murder and fund terrorism. Government officials had earlier claimed Padilla was suspected of planning to build and explode a "dirty bomb" in the United States, but he was never charged with this crime. He was initially sentenced to 17 years in prison, which was increased on appeal to 21 years. His lawsuits against the military for allegedly torturing him were rejected by the courts for lack of merit and jurisdictional issues.
Early life José Padilla was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Estella Obregón and her husband, both of Puerto Rican descent. The family later moved to Chicago, Illinois. As a youth, Padilla joined the Latin Kings street gang and was arrested several times. During his gang years, he maintained several aliases, such as José Rivera, José Alicea, José Hernandez, and José Ortiz. As a 14-year-old juvenile, he was convicted of aggravated assault and manslaughter after a gang member, whom he had kicked in the head, died.
After serving his last jail sentence, Padilla converted to Islam after his marriage to a Muslim woman and moved to the Middle East.["'Dirty Bomb' Suspect's Criminal Record", cnn.com, June 11, 2002. One of his early religious instructors was an Islamic teacher who professed a nonviolent philosophy and Padilla appeared at the time to be faithful to his mentor's teachings.Sontag, Deborah. "Terror Suspect's Path From Streets To Brig", New York Times, April 25, 2004. While living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Padilla attended the Masjid Al-Iman mosque, as did Adham Amin Hassoun, "for most of the 1990s and [they] were reportedly friends."
U.S. authorities accused Hassoun of associating with radical Islamic fundamentalists, including Al-Qaeda. Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, was arrested in 2002 for overstaying his visa and was charged in 2004 with providing material support to terrorists."Two Defendants Charged in Florida with Providing Material Support to Terrorists", United States Department of Justice; accessed May 14, 2018. By that time, Hassoun had already been charged with perjury, a weapons offense, and other offenses.
Marriage and family Broward County, Florida court records show that on July 1, 1994, Padilla changed his name to one word: "Ibrahim". He was married under that name to Cherie Maria Stultz on January 2, 1996. They divorced in March 2001, according to court records. In January 2001, she had placed an ad in a local business newspaper, serving notice that she was seeking divorce. Their divorce papers identify him as Jose Ibrahim Padilla.
Padilla married an Egyptian woman named Shamia'a, and they had two sons together. When he was arrested in 2002, the boys were infants. At his bail hearing, his wife and children were believed to be overseas."Judge Refuses To Set Bail For Padilla", Fox News, February 17, 2006.Goodnough, Abby. "Prosecutors Are Wrapping Up Case Against Padilla; Arresting Agents Testify", New York Times, July 13, 2007.
Terrorist activity According to press reports in 2002, Padilla had been in the Afghanistan–Pakistan region in 2001 and early 2002. At the time, the Defense Department said that Abu Zubaydah, then believed to be a top al-Qaeda official, had led the US to Padilla.
Padilla was alleged to have been trained in the construction and employment of radiologic weapons – "dirty bombs" – at an al-Qaeda safe house in Lahore, Pakistan. Padilla and Binyam Mohammed, a United Kingdom resident, were alleged to have been recruited at the Lahore safe house to travel to the United States to launch terrorist attacks.
However, more recent evidence suggests that the "dirty bomb" plot was likely a ruse to get out of Pakistan and based on an internet joke website purporting to describe how to build an H-bomb by swinging buckets of uranium as fast as possible. A 2003 CIA memo notes that the satirical article "is filled with countless technical inaccuracies which would likely result in the death of anyone attempting to follow the instructions, and definitely would not result in a nuclear explosion".
Arrest
Padilla traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. On his return, he was arrested by U.S. Customs agents at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8, 2002, and held as a material witness on a warrant issued in the state of New York stemming from the September 11, 2001, attacks.
On June 9, 2002, two days before District Court Judge Michael Mukasey was to issue a ruling on the validity of continuing to hold Padilla under the material witness warrant, President George Bush issued an order to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to detain Padilla as an "enemy combatant." Padilla was transferred to the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston administered by the U.S. Navy in Charleston, South Carolina, without any notice to his attorney or family. The order "legally justified" the detention using the 2001 AUMF passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, (formally "The Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution" (Public Law )) and opined that a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil can be classified as an enemy combatant. (This opinion is based on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Ex parte Quirin, a case involving the detention of eight German spies operating in the United States while working for Nazi Germany during World War II.)"Authorization for Use of Military Force: Padilla v. Bush:, Jose Padilla under the Joint Resolution" , The Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, Syracuse University College of Law.
According to the text of the ensuing decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Padilla's detention as an "enemy combatant" (pursuant to the President's order) was based on the following reasons: Padilla was "closely associated with al Qaeda," a designation for loosely knit insurgent groups sharing common ideals and tactics, "with which the United States is at war"; he had engaged in "war-like acts, including conduct in preparation for acts of international terrorism"; he had intelligence that could assist the United States in warding off future terrorist attacks; and he was a continuing threat to American security.
2002 memos Shortly after September 26, 2002, the top political appointees David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, John A. Rizzo, William Haynes II, two Justice Department lawyers, Alice S. Fisher and Patrick F. Philbin, and then-Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense Jack Goldsmith flew to Camp Delta to view Mohammed al-Kahtani, then to Charleston, South Carolina, to view Padilla, and finally to Norfolk, Virginia, to view Yaser Esam Hamdi, who had been subjected to coercive techniques including solitary confinement.Mayer, Jane, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals," 2008. p. 199 It was later learned that top administration officials had earlier discussed and approved the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques", a euphemism for torture, for the CIA. They were consulting with DOD agents to discuss techniques that might be used against the detainees in military custody. Later that year, additional "harsh techniques" were used on these three and other prisoners.
In October 2008, 91 pages of memos drafted in 2002 by officers at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston were made public. The memos indicate that officers were concerned that the isolation of solitary confinement and lack of stimuli were causing the prisoner Yasser Hamdi mental anguish and threatened his sanity. The memos also state that Padilla and a third prisoner, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, were held in similar conditions at the Brig.
Habeas corpus
Because Padilla was being detained without any criminal charges being formally made against him, he, through his lawyer Jennifer Martínez, made a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, naming then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as the respondent to this petition. The government filed a motion to dismiss the petition on the grounds that: Padilla's lawyer was not a proper "next Friend" to sign and file the petition on Padilla's behalf. Commander Marr of the South Carolina brig, and not U.S. Secretary Rumsfeld, should have been named as the respondent to the petition. The New York court lacked personal jurisdiction over the named respondent Secretary Rumsfeld who resides in Virginia.
The New York District Court disagreed with the government's arguments and denied its motion. However, the court declared that President Bush had constitutional and statutory authority to designate and detain American citizens as "enemy combatants." It held that Padilla had the right to challenge his "enemy combatant" designation and detention in the course of his habeas corpus petition, although immediate release was denied. Both Padilla and the government made an interlocutory appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
On December 18, 2003, the Second Circuit declared that Padilla's lawyer is a proper "next friend" to sign and file the habeas corpus petition on Padilla's behalf because she, as a member of the bar, had a professional duty to defend her client's interests. Further, she had a significant attorney-client relationship with Padilla and was far from being some zealous "intruder" or "uninvited meddler," as described by the government. Secretary Rumsfeld can be named as the respondent to Padilla's habeas corpus petition, although South Carolina's Navy Commander Marr had immediate physical custody of Padilla, because there have been past cases where national-level officials have been named as respondents to such petitions. The New York District Court had personal jurisdiction over Secretary Rumsfeld although Rumsfeld resided in Virginia and not New York because New York's "long-arm statute" is applicable to Secretary Rumsfeld, who was responsible for Padilla's physical transfer from New York to South Carolina. Despite the legal precedent set by ex parte Quirin, "the president lacked inherent constitutional authority as commander in chief to detain American citizens on American soil outside a zone of combat." The Second Circuit relied on the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), where the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that President Truman, during the Korean War years, could not use his position and power as commander in chief, created under Article 2, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, to seize the nation's steel mills on the eve of a nationwide steelworkers strike. The extraordinary government power to curb civil rights and liberties during crisis periods, such as times of war, lies with Congress and not the president. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2, of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress, and not the president, the power to suspend the right of habeas corpus during a period of rebellion or invasion.