Terror Indictments May Be Linked to Padilla

The Justice Department announced the indictment Thursday of two men on charges of financially supporting and helping to recruit terrorists -- including an unnamed U.S. citizen believed to be “dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla.

A federal grand jury in Miami charged Adham Amin Hassoun and Mohammed Hesham Youssef, who are in custody on other charges, with raising money to wage Islamic holy wars in places such as Somalia, Afghanistan, the Russian republic of Chechnya and the province of Kosovo in Serbia-Montenegro starting in the mid-1990s.

Hassoun also goes by the name Abu Sayyaf, and Youssef is sometimes known as Abu Turab, the government said.

The indictment alleged that Hassoun, a Palestinian national living in Florida, wrote checks totaling more than $53,000 between 1994 and 2001 to unindicted co-conspirators and organizations including the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation -- which the U.S. accuses of having ties to terrorist groups.

The Holy Land Foundation and seven of its leaders were indicted in July on charges of providing material support to the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas.

Hassoun, a computer scientist who came to the United States in the 1980s to study, already had been charged with lying to immigration officials about his recruiting activities and illegal possession of a firearm. He is in custody in Florida. Youssef is serving a sentence in Egypt for “other terrorist activities,” the government said.

The 10-count indictment, announced by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, points to a long-running investigation that included surveillance and wiretapping in the late 1990s.

The indictment cited numerous conversations between Hassoun and Youssef from 1996 to 2000, including one in 2000 in which they allegedly discussed support for the travel and terrorist training of an unnamed U.S. citizen who had gone to the “area of Osama.”

Ashcroft declined to name the co-conspirator but said the man traveled to a terrorist training camp under the auspices of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and returned to the United States in May 2002 -- a time frame that matches Padilla’s travel. Associated Press said two unidentified officials confirmed the Padilla connection.

A Chicago native, Padilla was captured in a highly publicized arrest at O’Hare International Airport in May 2002 as an “enemy combatant” in the war on terrorism and has been held since then without charges. The government said he had plotted to explode a crude radioactive, or “dirty,” bomb in the U.S.

Padilla, who spent time in Florida, is said to have known Hassoun from a mosque they attended in Fort Lauderdale.

Hassoun’s attorney, Fred Haddad, said his client would plead not guilty to all charges.

The indictment cited a series of coded conversations between Hassoun and Youssef in which the word “trade” apparently meant “jihad,” or holy war. In a September 1996 conversation, Youssef told Hassoun he was “ready for trade immediately,” to which Hassoun replied, “By God there is now trade in Somalia.... Get yourself ready to go down there to see.”

He then said there was “jihad in Somalia,” according to the indictment.

If convicted, both men face up to 30 years in prison on the terrorism-related charges. Hassoun could have additional time imposed for other charges.