The Bush administration decided to charge American citizen Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior al Qaeda members who had been subject to harsh questioning, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Padilla, suspected of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack in the United States and arrested in 2002, was indicted by a federal grand jury last week for conspiring to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas and providing material support to terrorists abroad.

The two al Qaeda members were the main sources linking Padilla to a plot to bomb targets in the United States, the report quoted current and former government officials as saying.

The al Qaeda members were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter, who gave their accounts to American questioners in 2002 and 2003.

The two continued to be held in secret prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose internal reviews have raised questions about their treatment and credibility, the officials said.

One review, completed in spring 2004 by the CIA inspector general, found that Mohammed had been subject to excessive use of a technique involving near drowning in the first months after his capture, American intelligence officials were quoted saying.

Another review, completed in April 2003 by US intelligence agencies, shortly after Mohammed's capture, assessed the quality of his information from initial questioning as "precious truths, surrounded by a bodyguard of lies," the report said.

Accusations about plots to set off a "dirty bomb" and use natural gas lines to bomb American apartment buildings had featured prominently in past administration statements about Padilla, who had been in military custody for more than three years after his arrest in May 2002.

But they were not mentioned in his criminal indictment on lesser charges of support to terrorism that was made public on Tuesday. The decision not to charge him criminally in connection with the more far-ranging bomb plots was prompted by the conclusion that Mohammed and Zubaydah could almost certainly not be used as witnesses, because that could expose classified information and could open up charges from defense lawyers that their earlier statements were a result of torture, officials said.

Without that testimony, it would be impossible for the United States to prove the charges, officials said.

Source: Xinhua