[UPDATE] 12/05/06- Part #2 to this post here.
Jose Padilla, the poster boy, we are supposed to feel sorry for, that the New York Times is writing about today was convicted of Murder, in 1983, before he was even 18. He was incarcerated until he was 18 for that murder.
His background via IntelWire:
Padilla was raised in Chicago, where he became involved in the gang scene at an early age. He was arrested at age 14 in a brutal murder and robbery committed by several gang members. Padilla moved with his family to South Florida after being released from juvenile detention in 1988.
In 1991, he was arrested in Florida after a road rage incident in which he pointed a loaded gun at a police officer. He served 10 months in prison.
Although several published reports have suggested that Padilla converted to Islam in prison, this does not appear to be the case. (All the reports have been attributed to anonymous government sources.) What seems more likely is that Padilla formed a favorable impression of Islam as a result of his prison experience, but several well-sourced news reports indicated that he first expressed interest in actually converting in 1993, while working at a Taco Bell in Davie, Fl., near Fort Lauderdale.
The New York Times in 2002 quoted Padilla's manager at the restaurant as saying that Padilla inquired about Islam while working at the store in early 1993.
According to government sources quoted in South Florida newspapers, Padilla may have been introduced to Islam by Adham Hassoun, a local Palestinian activist who in early 1993 opened an office of the Benevolence International Foundation in Plantation, Fla., about five minutes from Padilla's workplace.
The Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) has been designated as a terrorist organization by the federal government, which charges that the Islamic charity is a front for al Qaeda money laundering operations. Hassoun was arrested shortly after Padilla on an immigration charge and is currently fighting deportation in South Florida. He has not been charged with a terrorism-related crime, and he has denied any ties to al Qaeda and any wrongdoing in general.
Adham Hassoun has been charged with illegally possessing a firearm, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which also reported that, in a separate proceeding "Immigration Judge Neale Foster found Hassoun participated in an assassination plot, recruited a "jihad fighter," donated money to charities under investigation for possible links to terrorism and belonged to an international terrorist organization called Al-Gama Al-Islamiyya, according to Hassoun's petition for release to a federal district judge. That petition was denied."
Al-Gama Al-Islamiyya, also known as the Islamic Group, was led by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of a New York City-based al Qaeda cell. One member of that cell, Clement Rodney Hampton-El, recruited U.S. military veterans for al Qaeda, as reported in an investigative report exclusive to Intelwire.
Padilla's formal conversion appears to have taken place in 1994, when he took the Muslim name Ibrahim. When he was arrested, he had taken the Muslim name Abdullah Al-Muhajir. His subsequent court filings have been under the name Jose Padilla, which is by far the most common name used in news accounts.
Padilla left the U.S. in 1998. According to most accounts, he traveled to Egypt first, where he was to study Arabic, but found his way to Saudi Arabia and to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions and al Qaeda soon thereafter, according to an affidavit by Michael Mobbs, a Defense Department adviser.
After connecting with al Qaeda in Pakistan, Padilla appears to have answered directly to Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
CBS News reported in 2002 that Hassoun and Padilla had been in telephone contact shortly before Padilla returned to the U.S, and BIF was based in Chicago, where Padilla flew into the U.S.
Padilla is of Puerto Rican descent. His race has been identified in various government filings and criminal proceedings as white, Latino or black.
His Florida police record also gives insight into this man and his perpensity of being a danger to others.
Murder before he is 18, gun charges with one of the pointing a gun at an officer and connections with al-Qaeda....yeah, I feel REAL bad for this guy. As Confederate Yankee puts it: Boo Freakin Hoo!!!!
I think the more important question in all of this has nothing to do with these present charges, his incarceration or his links with al-Qaeda... the questions, if the IntelWire sources are correct (I am fact checking them more already) should be our justice system that allowed a convicted murderer out of jail to begin with because of his age, THEN only kept him imprisoned for 10 months for pointing a gun at a police officer. He shouldn't have BEEN out to have to be rearrested!!!!!
[UPDATE] In researching Padilla, there are a few more incidents where he was on the wrong side of the law.
I thought it would be cute to use yet ANOTHER New York Times article while fact checking:
But in 1985, Mr. Padilla was arrested in Chicago in connection with an armed robbery turned homicide. He told the police that he and a friend had decided to rob a pair of Mexican gang members because they were drunk; court documents show they took a watch, $107 and some Mexican currency. The victims chased the robbers, leading to the stabbing. Mr. Padilla was prosecuted as a juvenile.
Mr. Padilla's records are sealed because of his age at the time, but he is believed to have spent three years in juvenile detention. The prosecutor at the trial where his partner was convicted of murder said in a closing statement that Mr. Padilla "punched, kicked and clubbed" a victim with a baseball bat.
Court records show that Mr. Padilla, using aliases, was arrested twice in 1989, for assault and battery and for trespassing, and failed to report to his probation officer two months in a row, prompting an arrest warrant. Two years later, he faced weapons charges after being caught on Chicago's West Side with an unregistered .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson, police records show. At one point, he identified himself as a member of the Latin Disciples gang.
Mr. Padilla apparently jumped bail and, soon after, got in trouble 1,355 miles away, in Sunrise, Fla., near his mother's home. He was sentenced to 364 days in jail after a traffic accident in which he fired a revolver toward a car 20 to 25 feet away, according to police reports.
"He was resisting our commands, he was reaching for the gun," said the arresting officer, Lt. Charles Vitale of the Sunrise police. "He was 20 years old. It was an anger-type incident. None of those prior incidents came out. There were no links to organized crime or anything during our investigation."
Are we feeling sorry for this guy yet??????
Part #2 to this post here.
