A US federal judge in Miami resentenced Jose Padilla on Tuesday to 21 years for a 2007 terrorism conviction after an appeals court deemed the original 17-year sentence too lenient.
Padilla, an al-Qaeda recruit and the first US citizen labeled an enemy combatant, was convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people abroad, as well as providing material support for terrorism.
Federal prosecutors agreed not to seek more than 30 years in prison for Padilla as long as his lawyers did not introduce records related to alleged harsh conditions he endured during the three-and-a-half years spent in a South Carolina military prison.
“There are certain things we know and don’t know about how Mr Padilla was held,” US District Judge Marcia Cooke said on Tuesday before handing down the stiffer sentence.
Padilla sat shackled in a khaki jumpsuit and did not speak during the two-hour hearing. Under his new sentence, Cooke also ordered that Padilla remain held in a super-maximum security prison.
Padilla’s mother, Estela Lebron, who in 2012 mounted a failed effort to sue former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and high-ranking military officials for violating the US constitution, rebuked the government.
“Washington, DC, [former US president] George [W.] Bush, [US President] Barack Obama, all of the judges … they know that my son was tortured,” she said.
Cooke had delayed Padilla’s resentencing many times as lawyers wrangled over his long criminal history and classified documents.
“His actual involvement in jihad, his actual training, sets him apart,” Assistant US Attorney Richard del Toro said.
However, Padilla’s lawyer, Michael Caruso, said recruiters for extremist groups lied to Padilla, presenting jihad as defending Muslims under attack.
Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who attended a south Florida mosque, converted to Islam in the mid-1990s after a troubled childhood, his brother Tomas Texidor said in court.
“He’s not the man you think he is,” Texidor said, fighting back tears.
Padilla was arrested in 2002 as he returned to Chicago from abroad. Prosecutors said he had spent time at a military training camp in Afghanistan.
He was accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a US city, but was never charged with that.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in