MIAMI — In closing arguments yesterday, prosecutors said Jose Padilla was a “star recruit” for a terrorism support cell that provided Islamic terrorists to fight around the globe with Al Qaeda in order to create fundamentalist Islamic regimes,

The arguments mark the end of a three-month federal trial in which prosecutors have tried to prove that Mr. Padilla, 36, and two others provided support to terrorists. “They decided that this end justified any means, including murder,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier told jurors. “They were disciplined, they were secretive, and they advocated violence.”

Mr. Padilla was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest in a purported Al Qaeda “dirty bomb” plot. His trial with co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi on conspiracy and material support charges does not include those allegations. Mr. Padilla is the centerpiece of the case because prosecutors say he links the other two to Osama bin Laden.

“Padilla was the star recruit of a terrorist support cell,” Mr. Frazier said. Prosecutors want jurors to convict Padilla largely on a five-page “mujahedeen data form” he supposedly filled out in 2000 to attend an Al Qaeda terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. Mr. Padilla, an American citizen, was held as an enemy combatant for 3 1/2 years.

“You are already inside the Al Qaeda organization when you get this form to fill out,” Mr. Frazier told jurors. “He provided himself to Al Qaeda for training to learn how to murder, kidnap, and maim.”

Mr. Padilla has been in custody since his May 8, 2002 arrest at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The CIA recovered the Al Qaeda “mujahedeen data form” that is central in the case in Afghanistan after the American invasion in late 2001. It contains seven of Mr. Padilla’s fingerprints, one of his alleged Muslim alias names, his true birthday, notes the applicant’s ability to speak English, Spanish, and Arabic, and has other identifying details.

Other evidence linking Mr. Padilla, a Muslim convert, to Al Qaeda or to the alleged North American terror support cell — which prosecutors say was operated by Messrs. Hassoun and Jayyousi and others — includes Mr. Padilla’s voice heard on seven conversations gleaned from thousands of hours of FBI wiretap intercepts between 1993 and 2001 of conversations between Messrs. Hassoun and Jayyousi.

FBI agents testified that the telephone conversations were often in code, with “football” or “tourism” meaning “jihad” and words such as “zucchini” and “eggplant” meaning weapons or ammunition. Mr. Padilla was never heard using such code, testimony showed.

Mr. Padilla’s defense called no witnesses and introduced no evidence. His lawyers suggested that prosecutors failed to prove he conspired with the others or provided material support to terrorists.

Prosecutors contend that Messrs. Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, were American-based operatives for Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups, providing recruits such as Mr. Padilla as well as money and supplies for violent organizations around the world. Another alleged recruit, Mohamed Hesham Youssef, was also indicted in Miami but has remained in custody in Egypt.

Evidence in the case includes numerous checks written by Messrs. Hassoun and Jayyousi to various organizations that prosecutors say were involved in terrorism. Defense lawyers contend the assistance was intended to help persecuted Muslims in conflict zones such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Lebanon, and elsewhere.

The three defendants could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of the most serious murder conspiracy charge.