Jurors begin deliberations in Jose Padilla trial

Padilla was arrested in May 2002, declared an “enemy combatant” in June, and imprisoned in a military brig for three-and-a-half years without chargers or access to a lawyer. During that entire period, his lawyers say he was kept in solitary confinement and subjected to torture, including stress positions, sleep and sensory deprivation, and the use of psychoactive drugs.

The Bush administration first insisted that Padilla was planning to explode a radioactive “dirty bomb.” To avoid a Supreme Court decision on the government’s claim that it could continue to hold Padilla indefinitely and without counsel, his case was shifted to a civilian court in 2005. Allegations of a “dirty bomb” were dropped, in part to avoid any examination of Padilla’s past treatment by the government. They were replaced by the current set of charges, and his civilian trial began in May of this year.