MIAMI — Alleged "dirty bomb" plotter Jose Padilla and two codefendants were engaged in terrorism when they conspired to fight in foreign holy wars and should spend 30 years to life in prison, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The sentencing guidelines imposed by U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke seemed to indicate that, at least in the case of 37-year-old Padilla, she would heed prosecutors' call for life without parole.
A jury convicted Padilla and his co-defendants in August of conspiracy to murder, maim or kidnap persons abroad and material support to terrorism.
The federal government's allegation that Padilla had been plotting to detonate a radioactive bomb in a U.S. city was dropped before his four-month trial, despite having been the basis for holding the U.S. citizen at a military brig for 3 1/2 years.
Federal sentencing guidelines are advisory, but Cooke's rulings on various defense motions indicated she was following them to the letter in calculating the sentences for Padilla, his alleged recruiter Adham Amin Hassoun, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a former San Diego school administrator accused of delivering aid to Muslim fighters in foreign conflicts.
Specific sentences will be set by the judge as early as Friday, after testimony by character witnesses for the three defendants. But by endorsing the "terrorism enhancement" multiplier applied in a probation officer's pre-sentencing report, Cooke effectively rejected defense lawyers' calls for leniency.
Cooke modified the pre-sentencing report classifying Hassoun and Jayyousi as playing "leadership roles" in a global conspiracy to commit terrorist acts and impose fundamentalist Islamic regimes abroad.
She also dismissed as "disingenuous" the government's arguments that Hassoun and Jayyousi had criminal histories that called for longer sentences. Neither man had an arrest or infraction before the government began its clandestine surveillance in 1993.
Evidence obtained during that wiretapping was used to allege immigration violations to justify their initial detention and interrogation in 2001 -- the criminal history the government said warranted harsher sentencing.
The adjustments Cooke made for Hassoun, 45, and Jayyousi, 46, respectively dropped them one and three points below the 43-point federal sentencing standard for life in prison. But the application of the "terrorism enhancement" multiplier means she must give each of the three a minimum of 360 months' imprisonment to be in compliance with federal anti-terrorism statutes.
