Memo Links Terrorist Suspect to Plot

Several intelligence sources have indicated that terrorist suspect Jose Padilla learned how to build a radioactive bomb after being directed to a safe house in Pakistan by a senior leader of Al Qaeda, according to a previously classified government memo.

But the memo, written by Defense Department advisor Michael Hobbs and released Tuesday by the Justice Department, states that other intelligence shows that Padilla was not a member of Al Qaeda and there was no attack timetable.

Hobbs wrote that some of the people who provided information on Padilla may be trying to mislead the U.S. government.

The memo was included with a government court filing in which Justice Department attorneys defended the military’s detention of Padilla without a trial.

Padilla’s attorney, Donna Newman, had asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to order the government to give Padilla a trial.

In the government’s response, officials revealed for the first time how they came to suspect Padilla of being involved in a plot. Two Al Qaeda prisoners held outside the United States accused Padilla, the memo says.

In 2001, Padilla approached senior Al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah with a proposal to conduct terrorist attacks within the United States, the memo states.

Zubaydah, who is now in the custody of the U.S. military, directed Padilla to travel to Pakistan for training in wiring explosives from Al Qaeda operatives. There, Padilla researched how to construct a “dirty” bomb--a device that spreads radiation without causing a nuclear explosion.

Hobbs writes in the memo that Padilla met with Al Qaeda officials twice. This year, he and Al Qaeda officials discussed the possibility of blowing up gas stations or hotels in a series of coordinated attacks on the U.S., the memo states.

Some of that data have been corroborated, the memo says, but some “confidential sources have not been completely candid.... Some information provided by the sources remains uncorroborated and may be part of an effort to mislead or confuse U.S. officials.”

The memo states that one of the sources recanted much of the information he provided and one source was being treated with “various types of drugs to treat medical conditions.”

Padilla, 31, is being held in a military brig in South Carolina as an enemy combatant.