The application to join an &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/01/25/42553.html' target=_blank>al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan purportedly filled out by alleged terror operative Jose Padilla was released Friday by federal prosecutors, one day after defense lawyers questioned its authenticity.
The "Mujahideen Data Form," which begins with the salutation "Brother Mujahid," bears the signature of Abu Abdallah al Muhajir, which the FBI says is the Muslim name that Padilla adopted after he converted to Islam. He was also known as Abu Abdullah the Puerto Rican.
It was this form that &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/13/30311.html' target=_blank>Padilla completed to begin training in Afghanistan on July 24, 2000, according to prosecutor Stephanie Pell. It was found by U.S. forces in late 2001 in a binder that contained between 80 and 100 other terror camp applications, she said.
Padilla is accused in a federal grand jury indictment with four others of being part of a North American terror support cell that provided material, money and fighters for Muslim extremist causes around the world. Padilla, who has pleaded not guilty, is specifically accused of going to Afghanistan to become a terror operative.
"He was recruited to travel overseas to engage in jihad or armed confrontation," Pell said at a hearing Thursday. The form was released after prosecutors filed it with the court.
Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was charged with those crimes in November after more than three years in military custody as an "enemy combatant." U.S. officials have said he was plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" or blow up apartment buildings in an American city, but those allegations are not part of the criminal case expected to go to trial in September, reports AP.
O.Ch.
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