WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden’s former driver was convicted of supporting terrorism in the first US military war crimes trial of a terror suspect captured after the Sept. 11 attacks. The verdict was announced yesterday at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The trial was the first US war crimes trial since World War II.
The jurors deliberated a little over eight hours before reaching their verdict.
Salim Hamdan, wearing a white turban and long white robe topped with a tan blazer, stood tensely in the courtroom beside his lawyers as the verdict was announced, listening through headphones to the English-Arabic interpreter. He raised his hands and wept into them as the guilty verdict was read.
Hamdan is the first Guantanamo detainee to face a full trial since the detention center opened in early 2002. Although cleared of a conspiracy charge, he still faces a possible life sentence.
A Yemeni serving Bin Laden as a driver and bodyguard, Hamdan was accused of undergoing weapons training and transporting weapons for the group, and was convicted of providing material support to terrorism, Army Col. Gary Keck, a Defense Department spokesman, said in Washington after the verdict was announced at Guantanamo. Captured during the US invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 and sent to Guantanamo two months later, Hamdan pleaded innocent at the start of the trial on July 21. The US Supreme Court ruled in June that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo can challenge their detentions in civilian courts.
Lawyers for Hamdan tried and failed to secure a delay to the trial in order to set constitutional safeguards for the proceeding. A US federal judge in Washington rejected the request last month. It was the Bush administration’s third attempt to try Hamdan. Upon the verdict, the White House said Hamdan received a fair trial under the military system. A White House spokesman said Hamdan was presumed innocent and had an opportunity to present a defense to the charges against him. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it viewed the tribunal process as deeply flawed.
“Any verdict resulting from such a flawed system is a betrayal of American values. The rules for the Guantanamo military commissions are so flawed that justice could never be served. From start to finish, this has been a monumental debacle of American justice,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero in a statement.
Romera and others say the jury of military officers heard two weeks of testimony, including that of 10 federal agents who interrogated Hamdan without warning him that his confessions would be used against him in a criminal trial.
During the two-week trial by the military commission, prosecutors said Hamdan was an active Al-Qaeda member who delivered weapons and helped protect Bin Laden. Defense attorneys argued the Yemeni was a simple man who just wanted to earn a living and was not part of Al-Qaeda.
US military prosecutors say two surface-to-air missiles were found in Hamdan’s vehicle when he was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001. Emily Keram, a psychiatrist who examined Hamdan, said in May that he showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and was at risk of “suicidal thoughts and behavior,” according to commission transcripts. A previous attempt to try Hamdan was halted by a 2006 US Supreme Court ruling that invalidated military tribunals ordered by President George W. Bush. That decision led Congress to enact legislation reconstituting the tribunals. The United Nations has criticized the commission, where the jury is made up of military officers, and last year urged Bush to close the detention center and ensure just treatment for detainees. The 11-page verdict form was so complicated that the judge called for a yellow highlighter pen and marked the portions the jury president was to read. Jurors were allowed to strike some of the language in the charges, so some specifics of the verdict were not immediately clear.
The rules allow four levels of appeal, first to the Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo tribunals. She can overturn convictions and shorten the sentence but cannot add convictions or lengthen the sentence.
After that, Hamdan could appeal to a special military appeals court, then to the US federal appeals court in Washington and finally to the US Supreme Court.
