Miami ? A federal judge refused to dismiss terrorism support charges against Jose Padilla on Friday, rejecting defense claims that his 3 1/2 years in custody as an enemy combatant violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke agreed with prosecutors that Padilla’s years in isolation at a Navy brig did not count because he had not yet been charged.

The criminal charges came when Padilla, a U.S. citizen accused of being an al-Qaida operative, was added to an existing Miami terrorism support indictment in November 2005. Only then did the clock start for the Sixth Amendment’s right to a “speedy and public trial,” Cooke said.

“I agree that the law in this case is that a criminal trial proceeding begins with the filing of the criminal process,” Cooke said. “Mr. Padilla has been promptly brought to court in that matter.”

A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., previously ruled that Padilla’s detention as an enemy combatant without criminal charge was legal.

Orlando do Campo, one of Padilla’s four court-appointed lawyers, insisted that the lengthy imprisonment gave prosecutors an unfair advantage in building their case, including incriminating statements Padilla made during months of interrogation.

“No one has ever been treated the way Mr. Padilla has been treated,” do Campo said.

Padilla, 36, is charged along with Adham Amin Hassoun, 44, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, 45, with being part of a North American cell that supported Islamic extremist causes around the world. Prosecutors say Padilla was a recruit and filled out a form in 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan.

Padilla was declared an enemy combatant by President Bush shortly after his arrest at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport in May 2002 on what U.S. authorities then claimed was a mission to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a major U.S. city. That allegation is not part of the Miami indictment.

The dismissal motion was one of eight that Cooke was considering at an all-day hearing Friday as the case nears an April 16 trial date.

Cooke also rejected a defense attempt to prevent prosecutors from naming Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida during the trial or using words such as “violent jihad” and “terrorist.”

Hassoun lawyer Kenneth Swartz said such “hot-wire” words would unfairly connote guilt in the minds of jurors.

Cooke agreed with prosecutors that the words and names were inextricably bound up in the case, and that defense lawyers will have ample opportunity to challenge their use and meanings.