'Dirty Bomb' Suspect Padilla Indicted, SF Gate/AP, 11/22/2005

Jose "Dirty Bomber" Padilla has been indicted in Miami with criminal charges of being "part of a conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country and provide material support to terrorists abroad. " These charges are different from what he's been widely accused of doing ever since being nabbed in O'Hare airport in 2002 returning from Pakistan and held since as an "enemy combatant": planning to blow up hotels and apartment buildings with a radiological device. 

This indictment's a pretty significant since it seeks a ruling against Padilla as something less than testing the edges of the "enemy combatant" designation - there's no push to prove that Padilla was on-ground in Afghanistan/Pakistan fighting against US troops, etc.   The next step for Padilla contesting the ec designation would've been the Supreme Court.  Padilla's no longer an "enemy combatant."

Also, Padilla's lawyers can argue against more "classic" charges such as conspiracy and material support. I'm looking for the text of the indictment (which charges 4 other suspects, too) and will post it when it's unsealed by AG Gonzalez later this morning (now, I think).

Padilla'll probably be transfered from his Navy brig cell in South Carolina where he's sat for 3 years to Miami shortly thereafter.

Edit:  SF Gate updated their AP article, so I'll update this:

"The others indicted are: Adham Amin Hassoun, Mohammed Hesham Youssef, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, and Kassem Daher. Hassoun also was indicted on eight additional charges, including perjury, obstruction of justice and illegal firearm possession. Hassoun, a Palestinian computer programmer who moved to Florida in 1989, was arrested in June 2002 for allegedly overstaying his student visa. Prosecutors previously described him as a former associate of Padilla.

Padilla has been held at a Navy brig in South Carolina. Following the indictment, which was handed up last Thursday, President Bush sent a memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordering Padilla transferred to the federal detention facility in Miami."

Also, I just pulled today's indictment, the President's 11/20/2005 memo to the SECDEF releasing Padilla from EC-ness, and the brig transfer memo.  I'll post quotes soonish.

From the President to the SECDEF, in a memo dated 11/20/2005:
"I hearby determine that is in the interest of the United States that Jose Padilla be released from detention by the Secretary of Defense and transferred to the control of the Attorney General for the purpose of criminal proceedings against him...  This memorandum supersedes my directive to you of June 9, 2002 [Ed: When I declared him EC], and, upon such transfer, your authority to detain Mr. Padilla provided in that order shall cease."  EC no more! Turn in your t-shirt.