CURT ANDERSON Associated Press Writer

(AP) - MIAMI-A jury went behind closed doors Wednesday to begin deliberations in the trial of Jose Padilla and two co-defendants on charges of operating a support cell for Islamic terrorists worldwide, including al-Qaida.

An ethnically diverse panel of seven men and five women spent the past three months hearing from witnesses and listening to dozens of phone conversations intercepted by the FBI from an investigation spanning 1993 to 2001.

Jurors are not being sequestered and will deliberate at least initially from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke has repeatedly admonished jurors against watching or reading news coverage in the high-profile trial.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant following his May 2002 arrest on what authorities initially claimed was an al-Qaida plot to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city. He was added in late 2005 to an existing Miami terrorism support indictment amid a legal battle over President George W. Bush's authority to continue detaining him without charge.

The "dirty bomb" allegations disappeared and are not included in the trial, in part because Padilla was not provided a lawyer or read his constitutional rights when he was interrogated about the plot while in military custody.

Padilla, 36, and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, both 45, face life in prison if convicted on charges of conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas and up to 15 years on each of two terrorism material support counts.

Prosecutors say the three were part of North American network to supply al-Qaida and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia and elsewhere with fighters, money and military equipment.

They allegedly spoke in code over the telephone, using words such as "tourism" and "smelling fresh air" to mean violent "jihad." Defense attorneys disputed those interpretations.

Prosecutor Brian Frazier said Padilla was the group's "star recruit" who filled out a form in 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan.

"There was only one purpose to go to these camps, and that was to learn to kill," Frazier said Tuesday in closing rebuttal arguments.

Defense lawyers for Hassoun and Jayyousi say they were focused solely on providing humanitarian aid to persecuted Muslims, not violence. And Padilla's attorneys say he traveled overseas not to join al-Qaida but to study Islam and Arabic in Egypt.