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Ashcroft Announces New Terror Indictment

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Trials
Posted on Thu Sep 16, 2004 at 03:40:44 PM EST
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Here we go again. Attorney General John Ashcroft has filed another terror Indictment. It sounds like he got the information from "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla....who has been sitting in a military brig in South Carolina for the past 2 1/2 years, without charges being filed against him. The Government repeatedly has said it is not finished trying to interrogate Padilla.

A 10-count grand jury indictment handed up in federal district court in Miami charges Adhan Amin Hassoun and Mohamed Hesham Youssef with providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to provide support. Hassoun has been in custody on other charges in Florida since June 2003 and Youssef is jailed in Egypt on a terrorism conviction. The indictment contends Hassoun helped recruit individuals from the United States for groups engaging in Islamic "jihad," or holy war, in countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Chechnya and Kosovo..

Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced the charges at a news conference, said accusations against Hassouna and Youssef include a conversation in September 2000 in which they discussed supporting the travel of a U.S. citizen who had applied to attend a terrorist training camp in the Middle East. The citizen, who Ashcroft did not name, returned to the United States in May 2002.

Two federal agents confirmed to the AP that the "citizen" was Jose Padilla. And according to federal prosecutors,

....Padilla attended the al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan between September and October 2000 using the name Abdullah al-Espani. Padilla was arrested in May 2002 after returning to Chicago, where he grew up.

In fact, as TChris wrote here, Deputy Attorney General James Comey bragged about how they were only able to get information from Padilla by denying him the right to counsel--which would have attached had they charged him with a crime:

Time will tell whether Ashcroft has got himself some real terrorists this time around, or just another set of bumbling holy warriors

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