Documents: Padilla Planned to Blow Up Apartments

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Documents: Padilla Planned to Blow Up Apartments

WASHINGTON — Jose Padilla (search ), a highly-trained "soldier of our enemy," planned to blow up hotels and high-rise apartment buildings in the United States, Deputy Attorney General James Comey alleged at a news conference Tuesday.

Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, has already been detained for two years as an "enemy combatant" for allegedly plotting an attack with a "dirty bomb" radiological device.

The Justice Department on Tuesday detailed his alleged Al Qaeda (search) training in Afghanistan and contacts with the most senior members of the terrorist network, his travel back into the United States and preparations to rent apartments and set off explosives.

Raw Data: DoD Summary of Padilla Probe

Comey called the chronicle of Padilla's plotting "remarkable for its scope, its clarity and its candor."

The department released documents, based in part on interviews with Padilla, saying he and an unidentified Al Qaeda accomplice planned to find as many as three apartment buildings supplied with natural gas.

"Padilla and the accomplice were to locate as many as three high-rise apartment buildings which had natural gas supplied to the floors," the government summary of interrogations said. The alleged accomplice is in custody.

"They would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time," the papers alleged.

Comey said Padilla suggested to his handlers that he detonate a nuclear bomb that he thought he could make from instructions on the Internet, or that he set off a dirty bomb that would release deadly radiation in a small area. His handlers did not think either was feasible, Comey said, and wanted him to focus instead on the apartment-building plot.

continue at FoxNews.com

[channonc 466]

He still should have a hearing or a trial to even be named a "enemy combatant." I don't like the government being able to label people at whim and then deny you all rights as a citizen.

The Justice Department either needs to charge him with a crime or let him go.

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I agree, there needs to be some changes to that law.