Jurors quizzed in terrorism trial

Miami federal judge presiding over the nation's biggest terror trial warned prosecutors to be cautious about making any references to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks during jury selection, which began Monday.
Then U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke peppered prospective jurors with questions about whether they had ever heard of the lead defendant, Jose Padilla, or any of his other names.
If Monday was any indication, selecting a dozen jurors and six alternates from a pool of roughly 300 could take several weeks because the judge and legal teams will be slowly grilling the candidates about their ability to be fair.
The trial itself is likely to take at least three months. Padilla, a 36-year-old former Fort Lauderdale area resident; Sunrise computer programmer Adham Amin Hassoun, 45; and Detroit school administrator Kifah Wael Jayyousi, 44, are charged with conspiring to assist Islamic extremists overseas. If convicted, they each face life in prison.Padilla was first accused in 2002 of plotting on behalf of al Qaeda to carry out a radiological ''dirty bomb'' attack on U.S. soil and to blow up apartment buildings in major U.S. cities. But Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was never charged with those crimes as a designated ''enemy combatant'' in military custody from 2002 to 2005.
That designation was dropped in November 2005, when he was charged in the broadly framed terrorism indictment in Miami. Missing from the charges: the dirty-bomb allegations. The banker was eventually struck from the jury pool because of a potential hardship: His bank is going through a major merger this summer.
Another Miami executive, who was familiar with the case and whose sister was married to a Muslim man, also was excused because his family's business is being sold.
Of the 17 jury candidates questioned on Monday, eight were struck and nine were kept in the pool for now. Cooke asked those retained to return on May 1 for final selection.
Cooke ruled that prosecutors can refer to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in a limited way but cannot suggest that Padilla and the others were involved in that conspiracy.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley said that while the three defendants are accused of supporting al Qaeda, ``we're not going to try them for their specific involvement in 9/11.''