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MIAMI -- Jose Padilla was a "star recruit" for a terrorism support cell that provided Muslim extremist soldiers to fight around the globe with al-Qaida to create fundamentalist Islamic regimes, prosecutors said Monday in closing arguments.

The arguments mark the end of a three-month federal trial in which prosecutors have tried to prove that Padilla, 36, and two others provided support to terrorists.

"They decided that this end justified any means, including murder," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier told jurors. "They were disciplined, they were secretive, and they advocated violence."

Padilla was held for 3½ years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest in a purported al-Qaida "dirty bomb" plot. His trial with co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi on conspiracy and material support charges does not include those allegations. Padilla is the centerpiece of the case, largely because prosecutors say he links the other two to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

"Padilla was the star recruit of a terrorist support cell," Frazier said.

Prosecutors want jurors to convict Padilla largely on a five-page "mujahedeen data form" he supposedly filled out in 2000 to attend an al-Qaida terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was held as an enemy combatant for 3½ years.

"You are already inside the al-Qaida organization when you get this form to fill out," Frazier told jurors. "He provided himself to al-Qaida for training to learn how to murder, kidnap and maim."

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The closing arguments are the conclusion of an unprecedented legal journey for Padilla, who has been in custody since his May 8, 2002 arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

His lawyers fought for years against President Bush's decision to designate him an enemy combatant, taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. With that case drawing closer, the Bush administration decided in late 2005 to add Padilla to an existing Miami terror support indictment and drop the enemy combatant designation.

The CIA recovered the al-Qaida "mujahedeen data form" that is central in the case in Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion in late 2001. It contains seven of Padilla's fingerprints, one of his alleged Muslim alias names, his true birthday, notes the applicant's ability to speak English, Spanish and Arabic and has other identifying details.

But there is little other hard evidence linking Padilla, a Muslim convert, to al-Qaida or to the alleged North American terror support cell prosecutors say was operated by Hassoun, Jayyousi and others. Thousands of hours of FBI wiretap intercepts from 1993 to 2001 include numerous conversations of Hassoun and Jayyousi, but Padilla's voice is heard on only seven.

Padilla's defense called no witnesses on his behalf and introduced no evidence. His lawyers adopted the risky strategy of suggesting to the jurors that prosecutors failed to prove he conspired with the others or provided material support to terrorists.

Prosecutors contend that Hassoun and Jayyousi, both 45, were U.S.-based operatives for al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups, providing recruits such as Padilla as well as money and supplies for violent organizations around the world. Another alleged recruit, Mohamed Hesham Youssef, was also indicted in Miami but has remained in custody in Egypt.

Evidence in the case includes numerous checks written by Hassoun and Jayyousi to various organizations that prosecutors say were involved in terrorism. Defense lawyers contend the assistance was intended to help persecuted Muslims in conflict zones such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Lebanon and elsewhere.

"Our defense is, we were only giving aid for relief," said Hassoun attorney Kenneth Swartz.

FBI agents testified that the telephone conversations were often in code, with "football" or "tourism" meaning "jihad" and words such as "zucchini" and "eggplant" meaning weapons or ammunition. Yet Padilla was never heard using such code, testimony showed.

The three defendants could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of the most serious murder conspiracy charge.

© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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