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Former 'enemy combatant' denied bailJudge rules Jose Padilla has history of violence and could fleeFrom Phil Hirschkorn  Jose Padilla has been held since May 2002. YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- A man once labeled an "enemy combatant" was denied bail in federal court in Miami on Friday after challenging his pretrial detention. U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled that Jose Padilla poses a flight risk and has a history of violence. Padilla has been in custody for more than three years and is currently awaiting trial, scheduled for September, on charges of terrorism conspiracy. Padilla faced an uphill battle for bail, with prosecutors maintaining their stance that he is a danger to the community and a flight risk. In court papers opposing bail, prosecutors point to Padilla's violent criminal record, "including multiple bond jumps," and his alleged association with al Qaeda, the Islamic terrorist organization behind the September 11, 2001, attacks. They also note his "extensive international travel and significant ties to foreign countries," namely Egypt, where he lived for four years and has a wife and two children. He also has an ex-wife and a son in Chicago, where he was arrested in May 2002. Held in Navy brigOne month later, President Bush labeled Padilla an "enemy combatant," a military prisoner not entitled to normal criminal procedures. Under a post-9/11 footing emphasizing prevention, officials publicly accused but never charged Padilla of plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive device and blow up apartment buildings in the United States. Padilla sat in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina, for more than three years, as court-appointed attorneys in New York and South Carolina challenged his detention all the way to the Supreme Court. Prosecutors obtained an indictment in Miami on November 17, just one week before a deadline to reply to Padilla's latest high court petition. Last year a federal judge in South Carolina ruled the president does not have legal authority to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil without charges. But an appeals court in Virginia overruled, prompting a petition to the Supreme Court that justices are still considering. The indictment makes Padilla a fifth defendant in a two-year-old case set for trial this September. It makes no mention of the "dirty bomb" or apartment plots. Two of the defendants remain at large. Prosecutors allege Padilla was recruited to a North American "jihad," or holy war, support cell by his co-defendant Adham Hassoun, who allegedly sent Padilla money and supplies when he lived in Egypt. Phone calls scrutinizedMost of the evidence comes from thousands of intercepted phone calls among the five men using words like "tourism," a "door being open," and "smelling fresh air" -- allegedly code words for battle training, prosecutors said. Hassoun's attorney has filed a motion to suppress electronic intercepts gathered by the National Security Agency in a policy of surveillance without warrants that Bush ordered after 9/11. Padilla's attorneys said his voice is allegedly heard on only seven calls. 'The substance of the conversations allegedly participated in by Mr. Padilla are far from inculpatory," they said in court papers. Prosecutors cite a July 1999 phone call in which Padilla allegedly requested an army jacket and a sleeping bag. Other calls cited include those in the fall of 2000 allegedly indicating Padilla made it to a Afghan training camp "in the area of Osama," a reference to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Alleged training camp applicationPadilla's attorneys question the authenticity of what the government calls a "mujahadeen," or holy warrior, "data form" that Padilla allegedly filled out in July 2000 to enter the al Farooq camp, near Kandahar, Afghanistan. The FBI has said agents found the application in a binder that contained 100 other such typewritten applications in December 2001. "The chain of custody of this form is thus unknown," Padilla attorney Michael Caruso said in the court papers. "Although the government has had this form for four-and-half years and has had Mr. Padilla in custody for three-and-half years, the prosecution has yet to submit this form for fingerprint analysis." Most of the form is written in Arabic, through prosecutors have released an English translation. The birth date, October 17, 1970, is Padilla's, but it is written in two different styles, month-day-year in the American style at the top of the form, and then in the day-month-year style at the bottom. "This document is meaningless without evidence that Mr. Padilla actually completed the form," Caruso said. Prosecutors say the sponsor listed on the form, Abu Al Feda, is the same name on a piece of paper Padilla had when he returned to the United States. Prosecutors also say a cooperating witness who went to an al Qaeda camp will testify that he filled out an identical form. CNN has learned that witness is Yahya Goba, one of the so-called Lackawanna Six, the group of six Yemeni-American men who spent the summer of 2001 in al Qaeda camps and are now serving seven to 10 years in prison for providing material support for a terrorist organization. A seventh man who went with the group, Jaber Elbaneh, was among a group of terrorist suspects who escaped from a Yemeni jail two weeks ago. Padilla's criminal recordPadilla had spent five years behind bars by the time he was 22. His criminal history includes three convictions for three other arrests. Prosecutors said he jumped bail or failed to appear in court four times. In 1985, as a 15-year-old gang member in Chicago, Illinois, Padilla was convicted of murder and served four years in a juvenile jail. After he was released, Padilla was convicted of assault and battery and later arrested for marijuana possession. In 1991, after he moved to South Florida, Padilla was convicted of firing a gun from a vehicle and served a year in prison. His mother and two siblings still live in the area. Prosecutors say that since 1998, Padilla has lived in or traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. His alleged accomplice in the "dirty bomb" plot, a 27-year-old Ethiopian national named Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, has been detained by the U.S. military since September 2004 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. CNN's Patrick Oppmann contributed to this report. 
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