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MIAMI — Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born convert to Islam who became one of the first Americans designated “an enemy combatant,” was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison by a federal judge in Miami on Tuesday for his conviction on charges that he conspired to help Islamic terrorists around the world.

The judge also sentenced Adham Amin Hassoun, one of Mr. Padilla’s two co-defendants, to 15 years and eight months. The second co-defendant, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, received 12 years and eight months. All three men were convicted last August of conspiracy to murder and kidnap people in a foreign country, and of two lesser counts of material support.

The sentences, imposed by Judge Marcia G. Cooke of Federal District Court in Miami, fell far short of government prosecutor’s requests that each defendant be sentenced to life in prison. “There is no evidence that these defendants personally, killed maimed or kidnapped” anyone, said Judge Cooke before announcing her sentencing decision.She emphasized that while she acknowledged the severity of the convictions, she questioned the range of the conspiracies and the defendants’ involvement.

Judge Cooke said the Mr. Jayyousi’s involvement appeared to end in 1998, and Mr. Hassoun appeared to have written only one check to a suspect organization after 2001. She also cited letters submitted for the two that cited their community contributions.

Judge Cooke also said that the government evidence did not show that Mr. Padilla had graduated from a terrorism school. And she noted that she disagreed with the government that his being held in a Navy brig, as well as the harshness of his treatment, should not be considered in his sentence,.

The sentences followed a three-month trial and a seven-day sentencing hearing, and brought to a close the latest chapter in Mr. Padilla’s extraordinary legal journey, which began with his arrest in May 2002 at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

John Ashcroft, who was then the attorney general, announced Mr. Padilla’s capture a month later, saying that Mr. Padilla was part of an “unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb” intended to cause “mass death and injury.”

Mr. Padilla was held in isolation in a military brig in South Carolina for three and a half years, and subjected to intensive interrogations, before being transferred to civilian custody in Miami in 2006 and added to the conspiracy case against Mr. Hassoun and Mr. Jayyousi.

The three were charged with belonging to a North American terrorism support cell that provided money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremists around the world.

Mr. Padilla’s detention became the centerpiece of a heated debate about the Bush administration’s approach to prosecuting terrorism.

Administration officials had long maintained that some terrorism suspects could be properly handled only with military detention and trials by military commissions, not in the civilian justice system. But the verdict against Mr. Padilla seemed to undercut the administration’s insistence and, in the eyes of critics of the administration’s approach, proved that the criminal justice system should have handled the case in the first place.

The three-month trial included dozens of witnesses and transcripts of wiretapped phone calls between the defendants.

Prosecutors contended that Mr. Hassoun, 45, a computer programmer of Palestinian descent, recruited Mr. Padilla, 37, at a mosque in Broward County. The government argued that both Mr. Hassoun and Mr. Jayyousi, 46, an engineer and school administrator originally from Jordan, provided supplies, recruits and money to radical Islamic jihadists abroad

Defense lawyers contended that the men were involved in humanitarian missions to help persecuted Muslims in places like Bosnia, Chechnya, Lebanon and Somalia.

On Friday, during the final day of the sentencing hearing, Mr. Hassoun and Mr. Jayyousi told the court that their intentions were never malevolent. “We didn’t want to kill anybody,” Mr. Hassoun said. “I spent my life helping people. And I will never end it hurting people.”

In a separate statement, Mr. Jayyousi said, “I promised no support to kill, kidnap or maim anyone.”

The government’s main evidence against Mr. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member with a lengthy criminal record, was an application form that prosecutors said he had filled out to attend an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000. Defense lawyers argued that Mr. Padilla had traveled to the Middle East to study Islam and Arabic, not to participate in a violent Islamic jihad.

At the hearing on Friday, Brian Frazier, an assistant United States attorney, said, “It’s a wide-ranging conspiracy that enveloped many locations and many groups and took on many forms.” He pointed to Mr. Padilla’s long criminal record prior to his conversion to Islam and called him “a terrorist diamond in the rough.”

Following the defendants’ convictions last Aug. 16, some legal experts said the success of the Justice Department’s strategy cemented a new prosecutorial model in terrorism cases by relying on a little-used conspiracy law that required very little in the way of concrete evidence showing Mr. Padilla’s intent or ability to carry out the crimes.

During the sentencing hearings, which began two weeks ago and included seven days of arguments and witness testimony, defense lawyers argued for lesser sentences, saying that there was little evidence linking the three defendants to actual terrorism attacks or groups.

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