Padilla jurors hear taped conversations

Source: LA Times

The recordings follow the terrorism defendant to Egypt, where he lost touch with his South Florida mentor.
By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
June 16, 2007

MIAMI — In more than 100 wiretapped phone calls played this week in the terrorism case against Jose Padilla, jurors learned how the Muslim convert was recruited by a South Florida man, sent to Egypt to study Arabic and the Koran, and disappeared off his mentor's radar within two years.

Padilla's voice is heard in only seven of the calls played for the jury, culled from 14,000 "pertinent recordings" made by U.S. intelligence agents during the decade they had the alleged ringmasters of a North American terrorism support cell under surveillance. ~snip~

How and where Padilla was allegedly trained for waging jihad and whether that preparation involved taking up arms under the direction of Al Qaeda remained unclear after the prosecution played most of the 123 taped conversations it plans to introduce between Hassoun and a handful of other alleged recruits in Egypt, Kosovo and former Soviet republics near Russia's restive Chechnya region. ~snip~

Much of the taped conversation was inarticulate and hard to follow, even the recordings in English. Hassoun, Youssef and Padilla spoke vaguely and often seemed not to catch each other's meanings. ~snip~



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-padilla16jun16,1,1504223.story?coll=la-news-a_section

getting a trial, which should have happened years ago. Regardless of what the outcome will be, it is something he was entitled to from the beginning.

Mz Pip
:dem: