Padilla gets unexpected sentence

A federal judge Tuesday rejected prosecutors’ pleas that she put onetime accused “dirty-bomber” Jose Padilla in prison for life, citing the harsh treatment he received during 3 1/2 years he spent in military detention as an enemy combatant.

In turning aside government arguments for the harshest sentence possible, U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke also said there were no victims or any damage from the crimes of which Padilla and codefendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi were convicted.

A jury convicted the three in August of conspiracy to murder, maim or kidnap persons overseas and to provide material support to terrorist groups.

Under the sentence imposed by Cooke, Padilla, 37, will serve 17 years and four months and will receive credit for time served. The Muslim convert could be free before he is 50.

The judge’s surprising move to depart from federal sentencing guidelines caused the defendants’ attorneys to proclaim symbolic victory in a case that has stirred controversy since Padilla was arrested in Chicago almost six years ago.

Cooke deemed the recommended terms of 30 years to life more appropriate to people like Terry L. Nichols, who plotted the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing that killed 168 people, and would-be Sept. 11 hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui.

“There is no evidence that these defendants personally maimed, kidnapped or killed anyone in the United States or elsewhere,” Cooke said. She also noted defense arguments that Australian David Hicks, the only terrorism suspect convicted so far at the U.S. military’s war-crimes tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is already out of prison. Hicks fought against U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the weeks after the October 2001 invasion in search of Al Qaeda hide-outs.

Padilla’s mother was jubilant over the unexpected sentence, proclaiming “Hallelujah!” outside the courthouse. She said the judge’s action proved her son wasn’t the dangerous terrorist alleged by the government.

“What they said about Jose Padilla -- this proves he’s not a terrorist. He’s not an enemy combatant. He’s not Al Qaeda or Taliban. He’s just a human being and an American citizen,” Estela Ortega-Lebron said.

Cooke also cut the sentences given to Hassoun, 45, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., computer programmer, and Jayyousi, 46, who holds a doctorate in engineering and worked as a San Diego schools administrator during the time he was fundraising for besieged Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia’s Kosovo province, Somalia and Russia’s republic of Chechnya.

Hassoun, who recruited Padilla, received 15 years and eight months; Jayyousi received 12 years and eight months. They, too, are expected to get further reductions for time served and for having no previous criminal history, which should drop their prison time to less than 10 years each.

Jayyousi’s attorney, William Swor, said he appreciated Cooke’s recognition that Jayyousi was the least culpable in the alleged North American terrorism support cell.

But Swor condemned the government for bringing the case. “The government hasn’t made America any safer nor promoted the rule of law. It has just made America less free,” he said, noting that his client’s participation involved writing a newsletter and speaking his mind.

Although Cooke agreed to recommend that Hassoun be imprisoned in Florida, Hassoun attorney Ken Swartz said he feared the men could be sent the federal Supermax prison, in Colorado, because other Muslim Arabs convicted of support for terrorism have been sent to the harshest maximum-security prisons.

Assistant U.S. Atty. John C. Shipley informed Cooke that the government objected to the sentences as too lenient and would appeal.

The four prosecutors and an FBI agent who sat with them throughout the four-month trial declined to talk to reporters.

In a statement issued later, Assistant Atty. Gen. for National Security Kenneth L. Wainstein said: “The defendants’ North American support cell has been dismantled and can no longer send money and jihadist recruits to conflicts overseas.”

Padilla was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on a material witness warrant after spending three years in Egypt studying Arabic and Islam. Then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft alleged that Padilla was plotting with Al Qaeda figures to detonate a radioactive bomb in an unspecified city. President Bush proclaimed Padilla an enemy combatant a month later.

After 3 1/2 years in a Charleston, S.C., brig, Padilla was transferred to the federal court system in late 2005 when the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to decide whether his detention violated his constitutional rights. He was never charged in connection with the alleged dirty-bomb plot.

In a pretrial proceeding, Padilla’s attorneys sought to have him deemed incompetent to stand trial because of mental damage inflicted by sensory deprivation in the brig, where he was subjected to extremes of temperature, sound and light.

“I do find that the conditions were so harsh for Mr. Padilla . . . they warrant consideration in the sentencing in this case,” Cooke said, noting he was deprived of a mattress, clock, his Koran, human contact and access to a lawyer.

Padilla was the only defendant who did not take the witness stand last week to appeal for leniency. His public defender, Michael Caruso, told the judge that Padilla was incapable of speaking. Cooke refused to let Caruso read a statement on Padilla’s behalf.

The judge took off the 42 months Padilla spent in the brig from a 250-month sentence, leaving him with 17 years and four months before the Bureau of Prisons subtracts time served and consideration for good behavior.

“What is significant in this case, despite its stops and starts, is that it shows that the criminal justice system does in fact work,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counter-terrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

A former federal prosecutor, Orin Snyder, countered that Padilla “caught a break.” Snyder said Cooke would have been “well within her discretion throwing away the key.”

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carol.williams@latimes.com