Word: padilla
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...That plot, of course, had nothing to do with Jose Padilla, or his notorious alter ego, Abdullah al-Mujahir. It concerned three Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda operatives recently relocated to Morocco, who had planned to use a rubber dinghy packed with explosives to attack U.S. Navy vessels passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. The reason you're probably only faintly aware, if aware at all, of the foiled Morocco plot is that the U.S. media has been dominated this week by a mug-shot of former Chicago gangbanger Padilla, and talk of "dirty bombs...
...This utter ambiguity distinguishes Padilla's circumstances from those of John Walker Lindh and Zacarias Moussaoui. Walker Lindh, also a U.S. citizen, was captured while fighting alongside Taliban forces in Afghanistan, in an obvious "war zone." Since his detention last fall, he has been transferred over from the military court system to the federal system; a step that will lend a new degree of transparency to Lindh's legal proceedings. Moussaoui, the suspected "20th hijacker," will also be tried in federal court, although he is not a U.S. citizen...
...someone who was arrested well outside a "war zone" (as defined by traditional rules of war, anyway) should Padilla be treated as a suspected criminal? Douglas Cassel, director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Law School, thinks so. "Charges should be brought, a trial should be scheduled, and he should be allowed to see a lawyer," Cassel says. "They're maintaining they can hold him for the duration of the war on terror - which could easily be years, or even decades - without ever charging him with a crime...
...Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced Padilla's arrest Monday to coincide with the detainee's transfer from civilian to military custody, says Padilla trained with al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, and that the government has "very significant information" linking Padilla to "al-Qaeda and very serious terrorist plots." According to Bush administration officials, at the time of his arrest Padilla was in possession of plans to construct and detonate a "dirty bomb...
...will the U.S. deal with Padilla? What are the legal options? Monday Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told reporters the government would consider trying Padilla in the federal system, but that assessment has not been seconded from higher up the chain of command. Alternately, Padilla could be tried by a military tribunal. But that option would require some backtracking at the White House. When the Bush administration established guidelines for military tribunals last November, they stipulated that no American citizen would be subject to trial by that method...