Qaeda trained 'Puerto Rican Taliban': US prosecutors
Padilla's lawyers said the charges against him were trumped-up and insisted he and the other defendants had links with countries such as Afghanistan and Bosnia because they were involved in humanitarian aid for Muslims there.
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MIAMI (AFP) - US government lawyers branded the so-called "Puerto Rican Taliban" Jose Padilla an Al-Qaeda-trained terrorist who plotted bloody attacks abroad, during closing arguments of his trial Monday.
"He provided himself to Al-Qaeda for training to learn how to murder, kidnap and maim," government lawyer Brian Frazier told the court as it prepared to turn the three-month trial over to a jury to consider.
The former gang member, detained in Chicago in 2002, is accused of traveling abroad to train as a "jihad" fighter, and of filling out an application to receive "violent jihad training" while in Afghanistan in July 2000.
This "mujahedeen data form" found in Afghanistan in 2001, was the main piece of evidence against him. It was filled out under an alias but bore Padilla's fingerprints.
"You are already inside the Al-Qaeda organization when you get this form to fill out," Frazier said Monday, referring to the network whose leader Osama bin Laden was behind the deadly attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
Padilla and two co-defendants, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, are charged with aiding a US-based militant cell of Al-Qaeda that supplied recruits and funding to Islamic extremists abroad...
"He provided himself to Al-Qaeda for training to learn how to murder, kidnap and maim," government lawyer Brian Frazier told the court as it prepared to turn the three-month trial over to a jury to consider.
The former gang member, detained in Chicago in 2002, is accused of traveling abroad to train as a "jihad" fighter, and of filling out an application to receive "violent jihad training" while in Afghanistan in July 2000.
This "mujahedeen data form" found in Afghanistan in 2001, was the main piece of evidence against him. It was filled out under an alias but bore Padilla's fingerprints.
"You are already inside the Al-Qaeda organization when you get this form to fill out," Frazier said Monday, referring to the network whose leader Osama bin Laden was behind the deadly attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
Padilla and two co-defendants, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, are charged with aiding a US-based militant cell of Al-Qaeda that supplied recruits and funding to Islamic extremists abroad...
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posted by jillosophy at 8/13/2007 08:32:00 PM
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