by Christopher Newton, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — An American touted by Attorney General John Ashcroft as a significant terrorism figure with plans to detonate a radioactive bomb is probably a “small fish” with no ties to al-Qaida cell members in the United States, law-enforcement officials say.
The FBI’s investigation has produced no evidence that Jose Padilla had begun preparations for an attack and little reason to believe he had any support from al-Qaida to direct such a plot, said one of the officials, who requested anonymity.
The official said Padilla is a “small fish” in the terrorism investigation, but someone authorities still believe warrants being detained.
Padilla, 31, is being held in a military brig in South Carolina as an enemy combatant, a legal designation allowing the government to jail him without formal criminal charges. His attorney has argued in court that he is being held illegally and should be released.
Investigators have said they believe Padilla, a Muslim convert and a former Chicago gang member, ventured overseas in search of clerics connected to the most radical branch of Islamic fundamentalism.
In early June, Ashcroft announced that Padilla had been arrested at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
“We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb,” Ashcroft said, adding that the government’s suspicions about Padilla’s plans came from “multiple, independent, corroborating sources.”
Now, two law-enforcement officials close to the case say there is no evidence a plot was under way. One had been “thought out as a possibility,” an official said.
Padilla’s attorney, Donna Newman, said the government was avoiding a court case because it has little evidence against him.
“What we could analyze from government statements is that they didn’t have sufficient evidence to charge him,” Newman said. “All they could do was allege that he was somehow involved in the talking stages of a plan, and they didn’t even allege his role. And that is supposed to be enough to hold him without trial?”
Justice Department officials declined to comment yesterday.
Since Padilla’s arrest, the government has been more low-key in announcing arrests of terrorism suspects. No news conference was held when James Ujaama was taken into custody last month in Denver. Instead, law-enforcement officials simply confirmed the apprehension when reporters asked.
Ujaama, a former community activist in Seattle, was arrested as a material witness to terrorist activity and flown to Virginia. Federal authorities say they believe he supplied computer equipment to an al-Qaida terrorist camp in Afghanistan.
Most of the information that led to Padilla’s arrest came from captured al-Qaida operational chief Abu Zubaydah, officials said. Zubaydah, the highest-ranking terrorist leader taken into custody since Sept. 11, was captured in Pakistan in March.
One U.S. law-enforcement official said that the information Zubaydah is supplying during interrogations is not always accurate and that investigators are treating his comments with increasing skepticism.
For months, Padilla worked out of Lahore, Pakistan, and twice met with senior al-Qaida operatives in Karachi in March, government officials have contended. Padilla and the others are alleged to have discussed a radiological weapon plot, as well as proposals to bomb gas stations and hotel rooms.
Investigators have since decided Padilla may have attended the meetings more as an observer than a participant, one U.S. official said. Others suggest Padilla was important to the government’s terrorism investigations.