U.S. citizen Jose Padilla provided the ultimate support for terrorism by offering himself to al Qaeda as a trainee, a prosecutor told a jury on Monday in the trial of the former "dirty bomber" suspect. Padilla, 36, and two co-defendants face life in prison if convicted on charges of conspiring to "murder, kidnap and maim" around the globe and providing material support for terrorists.The defendants were part of a Florida support cell that provided money and recruits for Islamists waging a violent international jihad, or holy war, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier said in an opening statement to the jury. Padilla's attorney said had no ties to al Qaeda and was wrongfully accused by an over-reaching U.S. government at a time when fear ran high, he said.
Frazier said defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi provided plane tickets, sleeping bags and satellite phones to al Qaeda-affiliated groups fighting in Lebanon, Somalia, Kosovo and Chechnya in the 1990s. Padilla went farther by going to an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 2000 to train as a fighter for a group bent on destroying his homeland, Frazier said. "Jose Padilla was an al-Qaeda terrorist trainee providing the ultimate form of material support - himself," he said. "Joining an al Qaeda training camp was an incredibly rare thing for an American to do."
Padilla's attorney, Anthony Natale, said Padilla spent five years in the Middle East studying Arabic and the Koran in hopes of becoming a Muslim cleric. "Do not be fueled by fear, persuaded by politics," he urged jurors.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke forbade prosecutors from linking the defendants to the Sept. 11 attacks, which they are not accused of supporting or taking part in, and the defense also did not directly refer to them.