I feel bad for this innocent man who was made an example of if not double-crossed by intelligence agencies:
"Terror plotter Padilla gets new 21-year sentence" Associated Press September 10, 2014
MIAMI — Convicted Al Qaeda terrorism plotter Jose Padilla, a US citizen jailed for years as an enemy combatant, was handed a new 21-year prison sentence Tuesday because an appeals court determined his previous 17-year term was too lenient.
A jury found the Brooklyn-born Padilla guilty in 2007 on charges of supporting Al Qaeda and terrorism conspiracy, which carried a possible life sentence.
Evidence showed he attended an Al Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan before returning to the United States in May 2002 on what authorities originally said was a mission to detonate a radioactive ‘‘dirty bomb’’ in a major city. Those accusations were discarded when the ‘‘mission’’ was deemed only a sketchy idea.
Over Justice Department objections, US District Judge Marcia Cooke originally gave Padilla credit for his three-plus years in harsh Pentagon custody at a Navy brig in South Carolina. The new sentence essentially takes away the credit for those years. She rejected prosecutors’ request for a 30-year term.
Cooke, an appointee of President George W. Bush, whose administration approved Padilla’s treatment, said she remained concerned that he had been held for so long without criminal charge and had almost no access to a lawyer under conditions few US citizens have experienced in this country.
Maybe more of us are to and this is a way of softening us up?
‘‘I was then, and am now, dismayed by the harshness of Mr. Padilla’s prior confinement,’’ Cooke said.
We all should be.
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Okay, now back in the hole.
