MIAMI -- A videotape showing Pentagon officials' final interrogation of al-Qaida suspect Jose Padilla is missing, raising questions about whether federal prosecutors have lost other recordings and evidence in the case.
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U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was incredulous that anything connected to such a high-profile defendant could be lost.

"Do you understand how it might be difficult for me to understand that a tape related to this particular individual just got mislaid?" Cooke told prosecutors at a hearing last month.

Padilla's case is troubling....[A] year ago, the government, after a storm of protest in the press and elsewhere, decided that Padilla was no longer an illegal combatant and transferred his case to the civilian courts under a conspiracy charge. But here's the rub. The charges against him suddenly had nothing to do with a dirty bomb, and federal prosecutors against all rationality have denied that he ever was tortured.