My previous post about Padilla’s quandry as an American citizen but being held as an “enemy combatant” and the ACLU’s involvement and support of his ’supposed rights’ because he’s an American citizen.

The evidence against the “enemy combatant”, Jose Padilla, is pretty well documented, so I can’t understand what legal grounds the ACLU thinks they’re standing on when they’re defending this enemy of the United States.

In the first trial, it was found by the judge that there wasn’t enough evidence to detain him.

Here’s the evidence that the government has on him that connects him with Al Qaeda and terrorist activities. From the Chicago Tribune, June-2004:

According to the summary of evidence, Al Qaeda leaders had assigned Padilla and an accomplice to blow up as many as three high-rise apartment buildings by detonating natural gas explosions in two apartments rented in each building. One of his contacts, Adnan el Shukrijumah, was among seven suspects Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft asked Americans to be on the lookout for last week.

During interrogation, Padilla admitted that he had been asked to target buildings in New York, Washington, D.C., or Florida, although he said he never intended to carry out the plan and it was merely a ruse so he could return to the United States, according to the Justice Department document.

Other detainees interrogated about Padilla described the combination of targets as being in Chicago and Central United States, in California, or in Texas and along the Mexican border, according to the document.

Padilla and an accomplice allegedly received training from an explosives expert in Afghanistan on assembling improvised detonators and timing devices. The training also included instruction on techniques for sealing an apartment so natural gas would build up inside, Comey said.

When apprehended at O’Hare, Padilla was carrying more than $10,000 in cash allegedly provided by Al Qaeda and telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of alleged Al Qaeda operatives, Comey said.

Padilla originally approached Al Qaeda leaders with a proposal to attack a U.S. city with a nuclear bomb that Padilla claimed he had learned how to build through the Internet, Comey said. But a skeptical Al Qaeda leader reportedly suggested Padilla build a simpler “dirty bomb” that would spread radioactive material through a conventional explosion.

Al Qaeda leaders had doubts about the plots to use radioactive material and instructed Padilla to pursue the attacks against apartment buildings instead, Comey said.

Padilla’s intentions doubted

He added that the Al Qaeda leaders were never sure whether Padilla would follow his instructions or press forward with a radioactive bomb.

Comey said much of the information the government obtained on the alleged plots came from the interrogation of Padilla after he was transferred to military custody and stripped of normal protections given criminal defendants.

Comey, who was the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan when Padilla was transferred to military custody, said that at the time he would have been unable to convict Padilla without endangering intelligence sources.

He added that he thought it unlikely Padilla would have provided details of the alleged plot had he been allowed access to the court system.

Comey said Padilla’s statements have been “heavily corroborated” by other detainees held as enemy combatants.

Much of the summary outlining the case against Padilla mentions only his admissions. But the document cites statements from Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and several other unnamed detainees corroborating elements of the alleged plot to blow up apartment buildings.

The questioning of Padilla was done by the FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency, Comey said, adding, “I have great confidence that those folks did it the right way.”

It’s clear that the ACLU is fighting for the rights of terrorists who in my opinion, should NOT have a right to have “their side” of things heard in court, particularly repeatedly, with appeal after appeal. In my opinion, Padilla falls in line with the likes of John Walker Lindh. These are clearly examples of American Citizens who have gone to the other side to commit terror in Bin Laden’s name.

The Counterterrorism blog has some interesting information on his indictment, and the fact that is was based, in part, on the Patriot Act.

The indictment links Padilla to another pre-existing indictment of an alleged terrorist cell, marking the first time that Padilla has been charged in connection with terrorism activities and not just as an “enemy combatant.” The indictment alleges that Padilla traveled overseas filled out a terrorist training camp application and went to Afghanistan to so train. Another important development in this case is that it cites declassified foreign intelligence intercepts as a basis for the case, an action not available to terrorism case prosecutors until the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001. So this indictment provides the Bush Administration and PATRIOT Act supporters with additional justification for the reauthorization of the Act - see Dennis Lormel’s and Michael Kraft’s posts on that issue. The new indictment renders irrelevant a pending Supreme Court showdown over the enemy combatant issue, as Padilla will now be under the custody of the Justice Department for this case.

Here’s the full indictment courtesy of the AP (pdf file)

DOJ Press Release on the indictment