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Prosecutors may appeal new Padilla sentence

MIAMI (AP) — Federal prosecutors in Miami still don’t believe Jose Padilla (hoh-ZAY’ puh-DEE’-uh) has been sentenced to enough prison time.

The convicted al-Qaida terrorism plotter was sentenced today to 21 years, because an appeals court found that his previous 17-year term was too lenient. But prosecutors who wanted a 30-year sentence say the government may appeal the new sentence as well.

Padilla is a U.S. citizen who was jailed for years as an enemy combatant. A jury in 2007 found him guilty on charges of supporting al-Qaida and terrorism conspiracy, which carried a possible life sentence. Evidence showed he attended an al-Qaida terrorist camp in Afghanistan before returning to the U.S. in May of 2002.

The judge originally gave Padilla credit for his three-plus years in harsh Pentagon custody at a Navy brig in South Carolina. The new sentence essentially takes away the credit for those years.

U.S. officials have rejected Padilla’s claims that while in the brig, he was forced to stand in painful stress positions, was given LSD or other drugs as “truth serum” and was deprived of sleep. But prosecutors acknowledge that he was “not treated kindly” as a suspected al-Qaida soldier.

Judge Marcia Cooke today said she was “dismayed by the harshness” of that confinement.

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APPHOTO MH201: FILE- This Aug. 16, 2007, file photo, shows a courtroom sketch of Jose Padilla during his terrorism trial in Miami. Padilla is set to be sentenced a second time by a federal judge Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014 in Miami, because the original prison term of 17 years was too lenient. Padilla was arrested by the FBI in 2002 on what authorities said was an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” inside the U.S. Those accusations were later discarded. (AP Photo/Shirley Henderson, File) (16 Aug 2007)

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