Attorneys for one of the three terror suspects on trial here rested their case yesterday after weeks of testimony that challenged the prosecution’s assertions that Adham Hassoun and his co-defendants were part of a “South Florida terror support cell.”
Defense attorneys called two witnesses to testify about work as a computer programmer, completing weeks of testimony about the interpretation of FBI-wiretap conversations involving Mr. Hassoun and fellow defendants Kifah Jayyousi and Jose Padilla.
The FBI secretly recorded more than 300,000 conversations involving all three defendants — though only seven include Mr. Padilla — during nearly a decade of surveillance.
They are accused of providing money, equipment and material support to terrorist organizations in places such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Chechnya.
Mr. Padilla — once considered the star defendant in the case — has been relegated to a relatively minor role during 12 weeks of testimony, preferring to remain quiet and passing on opportunities to question witnesses for his co-defendant Mr. Hassoun.
On Tuesday, during an exchange among attorneys for both sides and Judge Marcia Cooke, Mr. Padilla’s attorney, Anthony Natale, said he would not put on a defense case.
“At this point, we’re not calling any witnesses,” Mr. Natale told Judge Cooke, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Mr. Padilla is accused of being a willing recruit of al Qaeda and of participating in a training camp run by the terror group in southern Afghanistan.
After Mr. Padilla was initially arrested in 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said federal law-enforcement officials had thwarted an al Qaeda plot involving Mr. Padilla to detonate a “dirty bomb” and blow up apartment buildings in major U.S. cities.
Mr. Padilla was said to have admitted to federal officials during initial interrogations in a military prison his involvement in a “dirty bomb” plot and to training with al Qaeda.
Those confessions have been ruled inadmissible because the defendants had not been read their Miranda rights.
Charges never were officially filed against Mr. Padilla during his incarceration in a Navy brig in South Carolina as a result of failure to gather enough usable evidence against him. The Bush administration in November 2005 then linked Mr. Padilla to the ongoing case in Miami.
Defense lawyers claim there is little real evidence tying the defendants to specific terror attacks. Mr. Natale said in his opening remarks that “there were a disturbing number of discrepancies” in the prosecution’s case.
Since then, Mr. Padilla’s attorneys have been virtually silent, while attorneys for Mr. Hassoun and Mr. Jayyousi bicker — sometimes heatedly — with prosecutors over procedure and the presentation of evidence.
It’s a tactic some speculate conveys to the jury a certain sense of confidence Mr. Padilla’s attorneys have in the strength of their case.
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