The Government has asked the Judge presiding over the Jose Padilla trial to allow a CIA agent to testify in disguise, complete with wig, glasses and facial hair.

The agent's testimony will be about Padilla's application to participate in mujahadeen training, described as al-Qaeda's holy warrior program.

Authentication of the document will come from a cooperating witness.

After the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan to oust its Taliban rulers in late 2001, authorities found a locker full of applications to join al Qaeda's holy war overseas.

At Padilla's bond hearing in January 2006, [Prosecutor] Pell said [Padilla's application] was found among 80 to 100 other mujahadeen (holy warrior) applications found in the country, which harbored al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before he masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. terrorist attacks.

Pell said Padilla's application was authenticated by a ''cooperating government witness'' convicted in an unrelated case who had once filled out the same Arabic ''mujahadeen data form.'' She said Padilla's date of birth, Oct. 18, 1970, was on his application along with his adopted Muslim name, Abu Abdullah Al Mujahir.

It's not an unprecedented motion.

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