STF NA MÍDIA

After a four-month trial in
2007, Mr. Padilla, a Brooklyn-born
convert to Islam
who grew up in Chicago, and
two co-defendants were convicted
of conspiring to murder,
kidnap and maim people
in foreign countries. Prosecutors
said the three helped
foster jihad as part of a North
American cell that provided
money, recruits and supplies
to Islamic extremists. The
sentences of Mr. Padilla’s
co-defendants stand.
Mr. Padilla, now 40, was
first arrested in 2002 at
O’Hare International Airport
in Chicago on suspicion that
he was planning to set off a
radioactive dirty bomb. He
was held in military detention
in South Carolina as an
enemy combatant for more
than three years. Subsequently,
he was transferred to
civilian custody and was tried
in federal court. His case
became a focus of the debate
over the Bush administration’s
approach to prosecuting
terrorism.
The dirty-bomb accusation
was eventually dropped and
not raised in court.
Judge Marcia G. Cooke of
Federal District Court, who
presided over the trial, said at
the sentencing in January
2008 that while she understood
the gravity of the crimes,
no evidence linked Mr.
Padilla and his co-defendants
to specific acts of terrorism.
She also took into account
his age, the sentences of o-
ther people convicted on terrorism-related
charges and
his time in the naval brig in
South Carolina.
But the federal appeals court
said Judge Cooke made several
errors in calculating Mr.
Padilla’s sentence. For one,
she “unreasonably discounted”
his troubled past, which
included 17 prior arrests and
participation as a juvenile in
an armed robbery that ended
in the victim’s death. Mr.
Padilla served four years in
juvenile detention.
The trial judge also overestimated
Mr. Padilla’s potential
for turning his life around
upon release from prison, the
court stated. Mr. Padilla’s
terrorist training sets him
apart from an ordinary street
thug, the court argued. And
while the appeals court said
it was permissible to reduce a
sentence on account of harsh
conditions during pretrial
confinement, Judge Cooke
went too far when she shaved
off more than nine years.
Mr. Padilla’s lawyer presented
evidence that Mr. Padilla
spent long periods in isolation
while in military detention
and said he was subjected to
interrogation, sleep and sensory
deprivation, and temperature
variations, among o-
ther things.
In her dissenting opinion,
Judge Rosemary Barkett said
Judge Cooke had properly
weighed all of these factors,
including Mr. Padilla’s time
in the brig, and did not abuse
her discretion. Instead, Judge
Barkett said, the appellate
court was overstepping its
bounds.
Both sides can ask the full
appeals court to rehear the
case or petition the Supreme
Court to review the decision.
Syria: 5 Deaths Reported in Crackdown
JUSTIÇA NO EXTERIOR •
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US) • INTERNATIONAL • 19/9/2011
Syrian forces killed five people
on Monday in raids to
shut down the antigovernment
protest movement, the
Syrian Observatory for human
rights reported. The
group, which is based in
London, said the raids were
conducted in Houla, an area
that consists of several villages
in central Homs Province.
The United Nations human
rights office, meanwhile,
said that Syrian security
forces had killed at least 100
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