One count dismissed in Padilla terror case

MIAMI – A federal judge on Monday threw out one count in the terror indictment against alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla and his co-defendants, concluding that it repeated other charges in the same indictment.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke leaves intact two other terror-related counts against Padilla and the others alleging a conspiracy to provide material support to Islamic extremist causes worldwide.

The count that was dropped charged a conspiracy to “murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country.”

Cooke ruled that charge was unnecessary because the alleged illegal acts were already covered by the other terror-related counts in the indictment. Prosecuting all three charges, she said, would violate the Constitution’s ban against double jeopardy, or prosecution of the same charges twice.

The dismissed charge carried a potential life prison sentence, while the remaining conspiracy count could net a maximum of 15 years. But Padilla and the others could still get a life sentence if the prosecutors can link the alleged conspiracy directly to a person’s death.

Padilla, 35, is a U.S. citizen and former Chicago gang member who was held without charges for 3 1/2 years by the U.S. military as an enemy combatant. He was arrested in May 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, purportedly on an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a major U.S. city.