Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born convert to Islam,
was convicted of plotting to kill people overseas and of supporting terrorism last August. Yesterday January 21, Judge Marcia G. Cooke of Federal District Court in Miami,
sentenced him to 17 years and four months in prison, instead of a life sentence as government prosecutor’s requested, for that conviction. Of Puerto Rican origin, he was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport in May 2002 after stepping off a flight from Pakistan. He first gained notoriety when he was arrested on suspicion of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack inside the US.