What does the detentions mean and what happened..?

Question

In May 2002, Mukasey approved Padilla's arrest on a material witness warrant as part of the government's investigation of al-Qaida. But when Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was convicted more than five years later of murder conspiracy, the allegations that he was a key al-Qaida operative never made it to court

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071015/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/attorney_general

What was he on trial for then?

Answer 1

Padilla was detained -- held in custody -- for years before ever going to trial. And the trial was on charges entirely unrelated to the reasons he was held.

In other words -- all the years he was held in custody -- without charges and without access to attorneys or the courts -- had NOTHING to do with what he was eventually convicted of -- it was purely unconstitutional detention in violation of 5th and 6th Amendment rights.

Many argue that the only reason he was even added to the list of defendants in Florida was because he finally had filed an appeal and the US Supreme Court had agreed to hear the arguments about whether it was acceptable to hold US citizens on US soil indefinitely without charges -- so to avoid that issue being before the court, the US govt found the next case going to trial, and simply added him to it.