The Saga of Mr. Jose Padilla - Essay Example

The case took a surprising turn in November 2005, when “Bush administration” filed criminal charges against Padilla in a Miami court. Surprisingly, the new indictment did not contain the original charges against Padilla and consisted of entirely different criminal charges. The new indictment claimed that Padilla, a former member of a Chicago gang, was a member of a group supporting violent jihad campaigns in Afghanistan. The group by the name of “North American Support cell” was known to support Jihad from overseas between the tenure of 1993 to 2001.

During the time the new indictment was announced, Padilla, due to extreme isolation and abuse for more than three years, was suffering from severe psychological damage and on these grounds his lawyers were determined to have the new indictment dismissed because Padilla was now simply incapable of enduring the trial. The judge did not rule on the merits of the defense accusations of psychological damages and denied the motion of dismissing the charges. (Anonymous, 2011). The saga of Jose Padilla captured tremendous media coverage because it raised numerous questions, the most important of the raised issues was whether the US government had the right to subject arrested US citizens to indefinite military detention with mental as well as physical abuse.

However, these fundamental questions did not receive any resolution during the trial of Padilla and his two co-defendants because Federal district judge Marcia Cooke, who was presiding over the case, clearly stated Padilla’s military detention was completely justified and questions about its legitimacy were totally irrelevant. The legality of Padilla’s three and a half years military detention as an enemy combatant was heavily questioned by media across the United States of America. In December 2002, the Southern District of New York stated during the first litigation that the military detention was authorized.

However, this authorization by the Southern District was reconsidered and reversed a year later by the Second Circuit. On jurisdictional grounds, the Second Circuit’s decision was vacated by the Supreme Court. Moreover, the Supreme Court demanded re-filing of habeas petition in South Carolina District. The South Carolina District Court supported the Second Circuit by stating that the detention was illegal and Padilla should not have been subjected to such harsh military viciousness however, in September 2005, it was reversed by the Fourth Circuit.

(Vladeck, 2007). Padilla trial, in total took almost five and a half years, during which Padilla, despite being a US citizen, was brutally tortured, and was held in incommunicado thus, in simple words it can be safely stated that Padilla was denied basic democratic rights. During the trial, he was subjected to what I must say were trumped up charges. During the trial, Padilla was claimed to have received training from Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1998. His visit and training in Afghanistan was said to have been supported by Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyosi.

Unfortunately, Padilla’s lawyers assumed that the Bush administration’s case against him was too thin and therefore, on Padilla’s behalf, they did not present any witness and evidence in court. Inevitably, it proved to be a major mistake and the damage it did was evident by the course of events which followed as the