August 07, 2008
GUANTANAMO BAY: Osama bin Laden's former driver was found guilty early today at the first US war crimes trial since World War II.
The jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay reached a split verdict in the trial of Salim Hamdan, clearing him of one count but convicting him of another that could send him to prison for life.
After three days of deliberation, the tribunal jury found the Yemeni guilty of providing material support to terrorism but not guilty of conspiracy. Hamdan held his head in his hands and wept at the defence table after a US Navy captain presiding over the jury read the sentence in a hilltop courtroom on this navy base.
The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for today.
The verdict comes after a 10-day trial, which has provided the first demonstration of a special tribunal system for prosecuting alleged terrorists.
The trial in a makeshift courtroom behind coils of razor wire, offers a road map for clarifying the legal status of nearly a third of about 265 men still held at Guantanamo Bay.
About 80 of them are slated to be prosecuted by military tribunals. Hamdan's case, stalled by years of legal challenges that reached the Supreme Court, signals those cases can move forward now.
The Government has long said it wanted to close Guantanamo but has struggled to get other countries to take the remaining prisoners -- those not slated for prosecution -- off its hands.
For those who are prosecuted, convictions could make it easier to send detainees to mainland prisons to do their time.
The chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo tribunals, Colonel Lawrence Morris, has even predicted the trials would be like space shuttle launches -- so routine the public mostly ignores them.
"We are confident that we can try cases to the highest standards of justice," Colonel Morris said while waiting for the jury, six US military officers selected by the Pentagon, to reach a verdict.
The military has not said where Hamdan would serve his sentence, and has suggested he could even be held at Guantanamo indefinitely.
Hamdan was never alleged to be more than a minor figure in al-Qa'ida, a chauffeur to bin Laden. He was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan with two surface-to-air missiles in the car.
He was accused of conspiring with al-Qa'ida in its plots against the US, but his lawyers say he was a low-level bin Laden employee who stayed with him for a $US200-a-month salary.
A Pentagon spokesman, navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, said the completion of the 10-day trial marked "a substantial sign of progress" in one aspect of the Bush administration's effort to eventually close Guantanamo.
The military has already released more than 500 Guantanamo detainees to their home countries, including Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib.
Some analysts, noting Hamdan's relatively minor status in al-Qa'ida, believe his trial was mostly an opening act, a demonstration of the US legal system for prosecuting suspected terrorists.
The main event will be the prosecution, perhaps beginning by year's end, of five alleged September 11 plotters, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh.
The Hamdan trial also established some of the rights that Guantanamo prisoners will have before the tribunals.
For example, the judge, Navy Captain Keith Allred, rejected Hamdan's claims of certain constitutional rights, including the right to a speedy trial and to be advised of a right to remain silent -- rulings that will be the subject of later appeals. Even after jurors began deliberating, the prosecutors and defence were sparring on Tuesday over the legal definition of a war crime.
The dispute centred on the charge Hamdan conspired with al-Qa'ida by transporting shoulder-launched missiles to kill US service members.
Source: The Australian
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