Key evidence on Padilla has murky origins

The U.S. government obtained a crucial piece of evidence for its terrorism conspiracy case against Jose Padilla from a mound of documents dropped off at a secret CIA location in Kandahar, Afghanistan, by a tribal leader’s driver, a covert agent testified Tuesday.

The CIA operative -- who identified himself under oath as Tom Langston -- did not name the tribal leader, the truck driver, or the area where the material was seized. The driver, he said, told him it had come from an office used by Islamic militants who fled Kandahar during the U.S. invasion in December 2001.

The document in question is Padilla’s alleged application to undergo Al Qaeda training, which prosecutors hope will link the 36-year-old former Chicago gang member and his two codefendants to the Islamic terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden.

In cross-examining the CIA agent, defense attorney Orlando do Campo raised numerous questions about the document’s validity and the chain of custody.

Langston -- who was allowed to testify in disguise and use an alias -- told the court that he had operated out of Pakistan and Afghanistan in late 2001, “collecting intelligence in support of military operations there.”

About the second week of December, just days after Taliban leaders abandoned Kandahar, the tribal leader’s driver showed up -- the bed of his Toyota pickup heaped with documents and supplies cleaned out of an office that had been “vacated by Arabs,” the agent said.

Though he spoke neither Pashto nor Arabic, Langston said, he recognized that a blue, loose-leaf binder full of Arabic forms was significant. The agent said he leafed through the entire cache as he hauled it from the pickup to a padlocked storage room. He later packed the material into 22 boxes and footlockers, which he escorted to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, by convoy and U.S. military plane.

At the Islamabad embassy, FBI legal attache Jennifer Keenan inventoried the evidence and had a few documents translated before sending the stash to FBI headquarters on Dec. 23, 2001, Keenan testified. Counter-terrorism investigators did not link the application document to Padilla, a U.S. citizen, until months later.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke earlier ruled that the covert CIA agent could testify in “light disguise” to protect his identity. It wasn’t clear Tuesday whether his beard, mustache and glasses were real; he went in and out of the courtroom via a secure corridor.

Cooke also limited the defense’s questioning of Langston under a confidential agreement negotiated with U.S. intelligence services. But when Do Campo -- one of the public defenders representing Padilla -- asked how the Afghan driver knew where to find a covert CIA agent at a secret base, Langston was instructed to answer.

“He was loyal to some individuals who were cooperating with us against the Taliban and terrorist elements,” the agent said.

When asked how he was able to identify the application forms -- part of what he had described as a “haphazard” pile in the truck bed -- as having intelligence value, Langston hesitated. “I’m a little uncomfortable answering the question because it gets into methods. I’m sworn to protect sources and methods,” he said.

Defense attorneys for Padilla and two alleged co-conspirators, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, indicated in opening arguments Monday that they would challenge the reliability of the application form on technical and security grounds.

The three men are charged with conspiracy to kill, kidnap or maim people abroad and with material support to terrorists -- charges that could lead to life sentences.

The government’s original accusations that Padilla had plotted with Al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb inside the U.S. were dropped in 2005.

Before that, Padilla had been held as an enemy combatant in a military brig for 3 1/2 years.

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carol.williams@latimes.com