Padilla fit for US terror trial

Jose Padilla was arrested at Chicago airport in May 2002

Suspected al-Qaeda conspirator Jose Padilla is mentally competent to stand trial on terrorism charges, a US federal judge has ruled.

Mr Padilla, a 36-year-old US Muslim convert, has been in military custody in South Carolina for the past three-and-a-half years.

He is scheduled to go on trial on 16 April with two co-defendants.

He faces life in jail if convicted of plotting to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country.

"This defendant clearly has the capacity to assist his attorneys," US District Judge Marcia Cooke said in the ruling.

It came after four days of hearing into Mr Padilla's mental condition.

Mr Padilla's defence lawyers had argued that their client should undergo treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

They had said the treatment was needed following his long isolation and what they said was torture in military custody as a suspected enemy combatant.

US officials deny Mr Padilla was tortured.

Last week a psychiatrist for Mr Padilla's defence said he was mentally unfit to defend himself in court, although prison officials said he displayed no serious symptoms of mental illness.

Other charges against him allege he was part of a North American terror cell that provided support to radical Islamists around the world.