Jose Padilla claims US agents tortured him

October 10, 2006 (WLS) -- Former Chicago street gang member Jose Padilla is claiming that US agents tortured him after he was charged with being an al-Qaeda operative. In this Intelligence Report: startling details of Padilla's allegations.

When Jose Padilla was arrested at O'Hare Airport in 2002 he was branded as an enemy combatant and held without any charges in a military jail. Only after a Supreme Court case and pressure on the administration was the one-time Chicago gangbanger indicted on terrorism charges and transferred to the criminal justice system.

But what happened during the three years in between, while Padilla was incommunicado, is now being alleged in stunning documents filed by Padilla's lawyers.

"On May 8, 2002, a soldier of our enemy, a trained, funded and equipped terrorist, stepped off that plane at Chicago's O'Hare. A highly trained al Qaeda soldier who had accepted an assignment to kill hundreds of innocent men, women and children by blowing up apartment buildings," said Deputy Attorney General James Comey in June 2004.

When the man he was talking about was arrested 35-year-old Jose Padilla the 9/11 attacks were still fresh in America's memory. Padilla was moved to this US Navy brig in South Carolina and held, not as an accused criminal, but as an "enemy combatant."

Jose Padilla's jailers were soldiers, who tortured him, according to newly filed papers by attorneys for the former Chicago gang member.

The lawyers claim that Padilla spent:

• 1,307 days in isolation

• in a 9-by-7-foot cell

• forced into painful stress positions

• with his wrists and ankles bound

• to a chain around his torso

• he was allegedly kept awake for days with bright lights and loud noises

• held in cold temperatures and plied with drugs

• threatened with a knife, attorneys say, by interrogators who promised to pour alcohol in his wounds.

In Miami, where Padilla is now being held, attorneys for the accused al-Qaida operative say federal terrorism charges against him should be thrown out because of what they call "outrageous government conduct."

Padilla is charged with participating in a North American terror cell and traveling to the Middle East for military training.

During Padilla's time in the brig, federal agents say they learned that Padilla and another terror suspect plotted to blow up apartment buildings in major US cities that at first included Chicago. According to justice department investigators, his original marching orders were given to him by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, then al-Qaeda's top operational boss and the architect of 9/11.

Padilla's lawyers have also filed a motion contending that too much time elapsed between his arrest and the criminal charges that were eventually filed against him.

The government has not yet answered the defense motions but is expected to deny the allegations of torture and argue that since Padilla was initially held by the US military the clock of justice did not start ticking until he was turned over to Justice Department agents, which is when he was charged.

Get more News »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•