MIAMI (AFP) – Prosecutors on Friday called for a life sentence against US citizen Jose Padilla, claiming the former Chicago gang member convicted of supporting Al-Qaeda had long been "a terrorist diamond in the rough."

Padilla was "a terrorist diamond in the rough," Frazier said at a hearing in Miami ahead of sentencing scheduled for Tuesday.

Padilla, 37, was initially accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive bomb in the United States, but the allegation was no longer raised when he went on trial after spending three-and-a-half years in military detention without charges.

Frazier insisted that while Padilla left his life as a gang member behind, he did not give up violence when he converted to Islam in the early 1990s.

"Islam was just a vehicle to continue this violent activity with a cloak of respectability."

He urged federal Judge Marcia Cooke to put Padilla and co-conspirators Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi behind bars for the rest of their lives.

Padilla’s lawyers said their client should serve no more than 10 years, while attorney’s for the other two called for sentences of a few years at most.

All three were convicted in August of supporting Al-Qaeda and plotting to murder, maim or kidnap people in Afghanistan and other countries from 1993 to 2001.

"This is a long-range conspiracy, it is a wide-ranging conspiracy," said Frazier, adding that the ramifications extended to hostage-taking in Chechnya, assassinations in Lebanon and beheadings in Algeria.

The defense team insists the three only wanted to help Muslim victims in conflict areas, including Chechnya and Bosnia.

"We never wanted to kill anybody," Hassoun, 45, told the court on Friday. "God is my witness, all that we wanted to do is help people in need, and that’s what we did," the Lebanese-born Hassoun said, breaking into tears.

Jayyousi, 46, described growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan and moving as a teenager to the United States, where he served in the US navy "to serve my country."

He urged the judge to "put justice before politics."

"I have never provided material support for any individual or group engaged in terrorism … I have nobody’s blood on these hands," Jayyousi said.

Padilla’s lawyer said his client could not address the court. The defense team claims Padilla was tortured while in military detention and that the alleged ill-treatment left him unable to participate in his own defense.

The main piece of evidence against Padilla is a form the government says he signed in 2000 to join a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. The prosecution claimed on Friday there was also evidence Padilla had "graduated" from the camp.

The government claims that Hassoun and Jayyousi recruited Padilla and other potential "mujahideen" fighters.

Padilla was arrested in May 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare airport after returning from Egypt and was taken to a US navy prison in South Carolina.

US authorities justified his detention without charge saying he was an "enemy combatant" who allegedly planned to detonate a radioactive bomb in the United States.

Padilla was transferred to the civilian courts in 2005 as his lawyers prepared to challenge his military detention before the Supreme Court. His indictment made no mention of the so-called "dirty bomb" plot.