Why did the Bush Administration Hold Jose Padilla for 3 Years as an Enemy Combatant?

The Justice Department announced Tuesday criminal charges have been filed against Jose Padilla - the U.S. citizen who had been held for over three years in solitary confinement on a military brig in South Carolina.

Padilla was first detained in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare Airport after he returned from a trip to Pakistan. At the time Attorney General John Ashcroft warned the government had "disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive "dirty bomb." President Bush declared he was an enemy combatant who could be jailed in solitary confinement indefinitely without charges - even though he was a U.S. citizen.

The Bush administration didn't even let Padilla meet with an attorney for two years.

On Tuesday Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced Padilla is being removed from military custody and charged with a series of crimes.

* Alberto Gonzales, U.S. Attorney General, November 22, 2005:
"Earlier today, a superseding indictment was unsealed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida charging Jose Padilla with providing - and conspiring to provide - material support to terrorists, and conspiring to murder individuals who are overseas." [Full transcript of statement]

But the indictment raises questions over why the Bush administration held Padilla as an enemy combatant for over three years.

There is no mention in the indictment of Padilla's alleged plot to use a dirty bomb in the United States. There is also no mention that Padilla ever planned to stage any attacks inside the country. And there is no direct mention of Al Qaeda. Instead the indictment lays out a case involving five men who helped raise money and recruit volunteers in the 1990s to go overseas to countries including Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia and Kosovo. Padilla, in fact, appears to play a minor role in the conspiracy. He is accused of going to a jihad training camp in Afghanistan but the indictment offers no evidence he ever engaged in terrorist activity.

This is Padilla's attorney Donna Newman.

* Donna Newman, attorney for Jose Padilla, November 22, 2005:
"We were anxious for an indictment because we knew that we could demonstrate that the government has exaggerated Mr. Padilla's involvement in any activity, that he was innocent of the charges."

The Washington Post reports Padilla's indictment came days before the Bush administration was due to respond to his appeal to the Supreme Court over his lengthy detention. Legal experts have said the government is trying to avoid another potentially losing confrontation in the high court over its detention policies. Attorneys with the Justice Department have already filed paperwork arguing that Padilla's Supreme Court challenge is now moot.

* Andrew Patel, one of Jose Padilla's attorneys.
* Bill Goodman, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

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