Defense rests in US Padilla terrorism case

MIAMI, Aug 7 (Reuters) The defense rested its case today in the terrorism support trial of former ''dirty bomb'' suspect Jose Padilla and two other men but Padilla's lawyers did not call a single witness.

Padilla, a US citizen, was held for 3 1/2 years in a US military jail as an ''enemy combatant'' before being transferred into the criminal justice system. He is the best known among the three defendants in a case seen as test of the Bush administration's ''war on terror.'' But the evidence has focused largely on the other two defendants during 53 days of trial marked by frequent squabbles among the lawyers, outside the jury's presence.

Neither Padilla nor the other defendants, Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi, testified in the case, which is expected to go to the jury as early as next week.

Hassoun's lawyers rested their case last week and Jayyousi's did so Tuesday. Padilla's lawyers were given a final chance to call witnesses but declined to do so.

''Your honor, on behalf of Mr Padilla, we rest,'' defense attorney Michael Caruso told the judge.

All three defendants face life in prison if convicted on charges that they provided material support for Islamist terrorist groups overseas and conspired to murder, kidnap and maim people in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and other countries from 1993 to 2001.

The government's evidence focused on secretly recorded telephone conversations, mostly involving Hassoun and Jayyousi.

Most were in Arabic and prosecution witnesses said they contained coded references to jihadist activity.

Padilla is heard on only seven calls played for the jury.

He did not use any coded language on the calls, the FBI's lead investigator testified, and mostly discussed issues such as the sale of a car he had left in Florida and divorce proceedings with his ex-wife.

The government's chief evidence against Padilla is a form he purportedly filled out under an alias in 2000 to attend an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Padilla's fingerprints were on the outside pages but the government did not present any evidence actually placing him in Afghanistan.

Padilla, 36, was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport in May 2002 upon returning from Egypt and was accused by the Bush administration of plotting to set off a radioactive bomb.

President George W Bush declared him an ''enemy combatant'' in the war against terrorism and ordered him imprisoned by the military. Padilla was held without charge for three years and eight months before being indicted in a civilian court in November 2005 on charges that make no mention of a bomb plot.

Prosecutors charged that Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian who attended the same south Florida mosque as Padilla, recruited him to go abroad for training with al Qaeda.

Defense witnesses said Padilla went to Egypt to learn Arabic and study to become a clergyman.

Jayyousi, a naturalised US citizen from Jordan, was a former leader of the group American Worldwide Relief.

Prosecutors contend he used it as a front to provide money and supplies to terrorists overseas.

A New Jersey warehouse owner testified for the defense that it was a legitimate charity that stored tens of thousands of pounds of donated clothing, canned food and medicine in his facility before shipping it to Muslims in war-torn Chechnya in the mid-1990s.

REUTERS AE VC2302