Two Charged in Scheme to Recruit Padilla

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The New York Sun

WASHINGTON – A Palestinian Arab with links to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and an Egyptian were charged yesterday with providing financial support for terror groups and recruiting would-be terrorists, including alleged Al Qaeda plotter Jose Padilla.


A 10-count federal grand jury indictment returned in Miami yesterday charges Adhan Amin Hassoun and Mohamed Hesham Youssef with providing material support and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorist organizations. Both men already are jailed – Hassoun in Florida and Youssef in Egypt.


According to the indictment, Hassoun wrote checks totaling $53,000 between 1994 and May 2002 to charities and individuals with ties to terrorism. From a base in Broward County, Fla., Hassoun also allegedly recruited people in America for Islamic jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan, Somalia, Chechnya, and Kosovo.


“This indictment alleges that an individual living here in the United States, enjoying all the freedoms that our society has to offer, was secretly plotting to support murder and terror being perpetrated by violent jihadists overseas,” said Attorney General Ashcroft.


Among those allegedly recruited by Hassoun was Mr. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert now being held by America as an enemy combatant. Several law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity for legal reasons, confirmed that Mr. Padilla is the individual referred to in the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator #2.”


Mr. Padilla, who attended Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, was arrested in May of 2002 in Chicago on suspicion of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in America.


The government now says Al Qaeda leaders were skeptical about that plot and instead wanted Mr. Padilla – along with suspected Al Qaeda member Adnan El-Shukrijumah – to fill multiple apartment buildings with natural gas and blow them up. Mr. Padilla is being held in Charleston, S.C.


According to the indictment, phone conversations picked up through electronic surveillance showed that Hassoun said in 1999 that he was providing financial support and travel guidance to Youssef and Mr. Padilla. Hassoun also allegedly wrote a $1,000 check to another person with Mr. Padilla’s name on the memo line; on a separate occasion, Youseff told Hassoun that Mr. Padilla “went to the area of Osama.”


Prosecutors have said that Mr. Padilla trained at the al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had set up operations.


The government previously has described Hassoun as a member of Al-Gama Al-Islamiyya, an international terrorist organization connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured 1,000.


The indictment describes numerous intercepted telephone conversations between Hassoun, Youssef, and others in which they allegedly talked in code about terrorist support and activities. At one point in 1996,Youssef told Hassoun he is “ready for trade immediately” and Hassoun responded, “By God, there is now trade in Somalia…get yourself ready to go down there to see,” according to the indictment. A bit later, Hassoun said “there is jihad” in Somalia.


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