Jose Padilla, a United States citizen detained for three and a half years as an “enemy combatant” was convicted on Thursday of aiding terrorists along with two other co-defendants by a Miami jury.

After five years of investigations and hearings, a jury considered that Padilla along with Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi are guilty of conspiring to kill people in an overseas jihad and provide funding for terrorism.

All three could receive a life in prison sentence when the final decision will be made on December 5. Padilla was arrested in 2002 and spent the five-year period in jail, more than three years being spent in a military detention facility after he was considered to be an illegal “enemy combatant.”

Padilla, the Lebanese citizen and another US national were allegedly part of an Islamic terrorist cell operating in North America, that had the mission of recruiting members and providing funds to the main organization.

Reportedly, Padilla intended to join an al-Qaeda training program and even filled out an application. This is the main evidence and prosecutors began building the entire case against him based on that document.

After hearing the verdict, Padilla and his family were bound to appeal motivating that “he wanted to go overseas to study Arabic” not plan terrorist attacks.

Padilla’s case took the spotlight after the Bush administration was accused of holding him illegally without pressing charges, but lawyers managed to add his case to the one already existing against Hassoun and Jayyousi in Miami.

The 36-year-old was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002 for allegedly plotting to detonate a “dirty bomb” (a combination of radioactive material and explosives) in the country, a charge that was later dropped.

Padilla wasn’t given access to a lawyer during his detention period in a military prison and that represents a sufficient reason for an appeal to the verdict given on Thursday, expert say. Further more, he alleged that he was tortured during his imprisonment, but the government firmly denied the allegations.