Bin Laden Driver Hamdan Convicted at Guantanamo Bay
By James Rowley
(Bloomberg) — Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s former driver was convicted of supporting terrorism in the first U.S. military war-crimes trial of a terror suspect captured after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Salim Hamdan was found guilty of providing material support to al-Qaeda by serving as bin Laden’s driver and body guard, Army Colonel Gary Keck, a Defense Department spokesman, said in Washington after the verdict was announced at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The jury of six military officers cleared Hamdan of conspiring with bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda operatives to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, Keck said.
The conviction today is the first of a series of military war-crimes prosecutions that will include the trial of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants.
Hamdan was captured during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 and sent to Guantanamo two months later.
The Bush administration praised the verdict. Spokesman Tony Fratto said in a statement it showed that “the military commission system is a fair and appropriate legal process for prosecuting detainees alleged to have committed crimes against the United States.” He said the Bush administration looks forward to proceeding with trials of other Guantanamo detainees.
`An Appeal’
A conviction means “now we will have an appeal” to test the validity of the crime of providing material support to terrorists, which is “a new made-up offense that didn’t exist when he committed it,” said John Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general and dean of the Franklin Pierce Law School in Concord, New Hampshire.
A decision on that issue “will be important because lots of people will be charged with it,” Hutson said.
The jury cleared Hamdan of specific accusations that he transported SA-7 surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan to be used by al-Qaeda to attack U.S. forces, according to verdict details described in a telephone interview by Air Force Major Gail Crawford, a spokeswoman for the Office of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay.
Life Term
The charges carry a possible term of life imprisonment.
The charge of providing material support to terrorism accused Hamdan of serving as bin Laden’s driver in Afghanistan, “knowing that by providing said service or transportation he was directly facilitating communication and planning used for acts of terrorism.”
The verdict didn’t spell out whether the jury considered Hamdan guilty of transporting weapons. Only one of the five specifications on which he was convicted contained a reference to such action.
That count said Hamdan supported terrorism if he “performed at least one” of four acts: “received training” at an al-Qaeda training camp, served as bin Laden’s driver, served as his bodyguard, or transported weapons to deliver them to al-Qaeda or the Taliban forces of Afghanistan.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said in a statement that Hamdan’s acquittal on some charges “demonstrates that the jury weighed the evidence carefully.” McCain, a Senate sponsor of legislation that set up the tribunals, said, “This process demonstrated that military commissions can effectively bring very dangerous terrorists to justice.”
`Dangerous Flaws’
McCain’s Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, said the six- year delay in bringing a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist to trial “underscores the dangerous flaws in the administration’s legal framework.” Instead, the government should be “bringing swift and sure justice” with trials in criminal courts or military courts-martial, Obama said in a written statement.
Eugene Fidell, a Washington lawyer who heads the National Institute for Military Justice, said he “wouldn’t be popping champagne bottles if I were in charge of this process.”
“The admission of evidence that seems to have been obtained by coercion” and secrecy restrictions on questioning witnesses have “a corrosive effect on public confidence” in the military commissions, Fidell said. “I haven’t really seen why this case should not have not been tried in federal district court.”
“Any verdict resulting from such a flawed system is a betrayal of American values,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “The rules for Guantanamo military commissions are so flawed that justice could never be served.”
Tried and Failed
Lawyers for Hamdan tried and failed to secure a delay to the trial in order to set constitutional safeguards for the proceeding. A U.S. federal judge in Washington rejected the request last month.
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 U.S. 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 U.S. Navy has maintained a base at Guantanamo since 1898. The land was leased under a 1903 treaty with Cuba that the government of Fidel Castro called invalid.
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rowley at jarowley@bloomberg.net
August 6th, 2008 | Category: Guantanamo, Kangaroo Kourt, Salim Hamdan
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