A federal judge in Miami today found that Jose Padilla is competent to stand trial.

"This defendant clearly has the capacity to assist his attorneys," Cooke said just hours after she finished four days of competency hearings.

....Cooke said testimony in the competency hearing showed that Padilla understands "legal nuances" of pretrial motions and noted that he had signed a document verifying the truth of allegations made by the defense that he was tortured and mistreated during his years in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. "At some time, the defendant was able to discuss some things with his lawyers," Cooke said. "The defendant's situation is unique. He understands that."

Padilla had no reaction in court to the decision. I'm not surprised. He probably had no idea what was going on.

More....

The L.A. Times reports:

When the Bush administration shut down the nation's largest Muslim charity five years ago, officials of the Dallas-based foundation denied allegations it was linked to terrorists and insisted that a number of accusations were fabricated by the government. Now, attorneys for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development say the government's own documents provide evidence of that claim.

In recent court filings, defense lawyers disclosed striking discrepancies between an official summary and the verbatim transcripts of an FBI-wiretapped conversation in 1996 involving Holy Land officials.

The FBI summaries of the wiretapped calls contain anti-semitic comments not found in the transcripts.

More...

Via Raw Story, A psychiatrist testified today Jose Padilla has Stockholm Syndrome.

A pre-hearing synopsis is at the Miami Herald.

Jose Padilla's has competency hearing has been continued to February 22 due to a report from prison shrinks that he's mentally fit for trial. The defense claims there are inaccuracies in the report.

The Christian Science Monitor today examine Padilla's allegation that he was tortured while held in the South Carolina brig for four years and cannot assist his lawyers in his defense.

...federal prosecutors are expected to urge the judge to ignore everything that took place during Padilla's military detention. They say his harsh treatment is irrelevant to whether he is mentally competent to stand trial.

Padilla's lawyers disagree. They say their client was tortured by the military and they are asking the judge to order the government to fully account for its treatment of Padilla.

Here's an article from a few weeks ago examining whether Padilla's allegations meet the definition of torture.

A trial that was billed "as a major component in [the government's] war on terrorism" has, predictably enough, ended with an acquittal on the most serious charge.

[Muhammad] Salah, 53, and Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 48, a one-time assistant business professor at Howard University in Washington, had been accused of laundering money for Hamas terrorists fighting to topple the Israeli government.

A jury found both men not guilty of racketeering. Both were convicted of the significantly less serious crime of obstructing justice, and Ashqar was convicted of criminal contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury.

"This is a great day for justice," said defense attorney Michael E. Deutsch, who represented former grocer Muhammad Salah.

Fred Grimm at the Miami Herald has a column on detained "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla.

In describing his trip to the jail dentist, Grimm writes:

Padilla's dental visit -- photos of the exercise are in the federal court files -- reach beyond the legal questions. It has the look of gratuitous cruelty.

The treatment of an American citizen in pretrial detention seemed to be taken from the imaginings of Kafka. It appeared to be sensory deprivation just for the hell of it.

Grimm recaps Padilla's treatment:

The accused was held in extreme isolation for 1,307 days. Held in a nine-by-seven-foot cell. The only window blacked out. He was the lone prisoner on the two-tier cellblock. He was given food through a slot in the door. He slept on a steel mattress. No reading material. No calendar. No clock. Nothing to connect him to the outside world.

Good news on the Jose Padilla front: His federal court trial has been continued from January 22 until April, so that a full mental evaluation can be performed.

Background here and here.

Oral argument on the judge's decision dismissing the most serious count against him was held before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this week. The judges were less than hospitable to the defense arguments, but one can never predict how an appeals court will rule.

The New York Times recounts the conversations recorded on the wiretaps in the Jose Padilla case. Shorter version:

Tens of thousands of conversations were recorded. Some 230 phone calls form the core of the government’s case, including 21 that make reference to Mr. Padilla, prosecutors said. But Mr. Padilla’s voice is heard on only seven calls. And on those seven, which The Times obtained from a participant in the case, Mr. Padilla does not discuss violent plots.

What's the prosecution's strongest evidence?

The federal judge presiding over the Jose Padilla trial ordered him to be mentally evaluated by Bureau of Prisons doctors.

Defense attorneys have argued that 3-1/2 years of torture and solitary confinement in a military brig had left Padilla mentally ill and unable to understand the charges against him or assist in his defense.

Prosecutors have emphatically denied that Padilla was mistreated in any way but did not object to his undergoing a mental exam.

Is that because they have faith the BOP shrinks will rule for them?

Alex Koppelman at Salon compares the prosecution of Jose Padilla to that of a home-grown terrorist tried the old-fashioned way and explains why the Padilla method is likely to fail.

That the prosecution of Crocker ended so successfully points to what may ultimately be the most significant difference between the Crocker and Padilla cases. Crocker was investigated, prosecuted and detained in the old, pre-9/11 way, and his case has held up even as the Padilla prosecution has self-destructed.

The Crocker case was brought in by old-fashioned police work. A confidential informant passed on a tip and a sting was conducted by an FBI agent careful to make sure the plan was real and not a creation of the government. No lawyer for Crocker has ever filed an allegation that Crocker was tortured. He wasn't even cuffed or shackled at his arraignment. The case against Padilla, on the other hand, came about through anything but normal means, and that has been its downfall.

The Wall St. Journal (free link) examines the problems the Pentagon has encountered with the military commission trial of Canadian teenager Omar Khahr.

I see Omar Khadr, Child of Jihad, much different than the military.

Florida District Court Judge Marcia Cooke will hold a status conference Monday on the issue of alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla's competency.

From the Southern Distict of Florida Blog, the issues, according to the AP are:

• Reports being suspicious of everyone, including his attorneys, and stated that he does not know who he can and cannot trust. He indicated he was unsure of whether his attorneys might really be federal agents posing as his attorneys.''
  
• Appeared to become visibly distressed whenever asked about sensitive topics (his palms appeared to become sweaty ... his body would tense up, and he would rock back and forth).''
  
  
• Is unable to watch video recordings of his interrogation ..."
  
  
• "Appears convinced at times that no matter what happens he will be returned to the brig, even if he prevails in the current case.''
  
  
• Was certain that nobody could help him, that he could not be rescued from his current situation.''
  
  
• Both experts concluded that Padilla was not faking mental problems and, in Hegarty's words, "is terrified that anyone will consider him mentally ill or crazy.''

Criminal defense lawyers aren't thrilled when their clients decide to contact the media on their own. But that's what Miami 7 terror suspect Narseal Batiste has done. In a 25 page letter, he asserts his innocence and laments a frame-up.

"I want you to know that I never had any intentions of doing a terrorist act," Batiste now says in his letter. "My group and I never had reason to harm anyone."

Batiste writes the FBI put drugs in food he and co-defendants Patrick Abraham were served by the FBI informant the night a surveillance tape was shot, on which Batiste talks about blowing up the Sears Tower. He wrote that he’s simply telling the informant what he wanted to hear, just so he could get money from him for their church.

"That's why you see me playing with tissue boxes talking about blowing up the Sears Tower. I made it up right then and there," he wrote.

Background here.

[hat tip SD Florida Blog]