Defense Objects as Padilla Jury Sees Video

MIAMI, June 26 -- Just before and after CNN presented a rare interview with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden 10 years ago, two men charged here with forming a U.S.-based support cell with former "enemy combatant" suspect Jose Padilla spoke together almost as star-struck fans.

"Yea, Osama bin Laden!" Adham Hassoun, the alleged recruiter for the cell, told co-defendant Kifah Jayyousi in a wiretapped call.

"Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is the greatest"), Jayyousi responded, according to a translated transcript of the wiretapped call. "Please tape it."

"O Allah . . . O Allah . . . May Allah protect him," Hassoun effused in another conversation. Elsewhere, referring to President Bill Clinton, Hassoun said that "he doesn't let the dog in the White House sleep at night."

The presentation of the 1997 bin Laden interview to jurors Tuesday sparked one of the most intense debates in the five weeks since opening arguments in the trial of the three men on terrorism charges.

Since none of the defendants is alleged to have spoken with bin Laden, defense attorneys had complained that, aside from being irrelevant, the interview could unfairly arouse in jurors the passions and memories of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

Presenting the tape to jurors is "unduly inflammatory and has nothing to do with the charges against these men," Marshall Louis, Jayyousi's attorney, said in court.

But prosecutors said the interview, along with the wiretapped comments from Hassoun and Jayyousi that followed it, shed light on their allegiance to al-Qaeda.

U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke allowed a shortened, seven-minute version of the interview to be shown.

In it, interviewer Peter Arnett describes visiting bin Laden, "one of the world's most wanted men," at an unidentified mountain hideout. In the tape shown to jurors, bin Laden discusses how the Afghan war destroyed "the myth of the superpower," complains of U.S. policy on Israel and denies financing the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"We declared a jihad, a holy war, against the United States government because it is unjust, criminal and tyrannical," bin Laden says through an interpreter.

Mindful of the emotional effects bin Laden and Sept. 11 could have on jurors, Cooke warned: "The events of September 11, 2001, should not be considered by you in reaching a decision in this case."