Military jurors found Osama bin Laden’s former driver Salim Hamdan not guilty yesterday on terrorist conspiracy charges but convicted him on the lesser charge of providing material support to terrorism.
The split verdict marked a dramatic conclusion of the first trial before the special tribunals created by US President George W. Bush to try suspects in the “war on terror.”
Hamdan faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison.
His trial is seen as an important test of the controversial military commission system set up by the Bush administration. During two week proceedings, Justice Department prosecutor John Murphy described Hamdan as among the worst of bin Laden’s henchmen.
“He’s an al-Qaeda warrior. He has wounded, and the people he has worked with have wounded the world,” Murphy told the jury.
But Hamdan’s lawyers, who have already announced they will appeal, argued that although he served as bin Laden’s driver, Hamdan was not implicated in any terrorist activity.
“We will capture or kill Osama bin Laden some day. You should not punish the general’s driver today with the crimes of the general,” the Yemeni man’s court-appointed military attorney, Navy Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer, told the court.
Human Rights Watch slammed the proceedings as marred by irregularities and built-in handicaps, making it all but impossible for Hamdan to get a fair hearing.
“A trial that depends on handicapping the defense can’t possibly be fair,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch.
“The military judge tried at times to mitigate the commission’s most unjust rules, but the flaws in the system won out.” Throughout the trial, Hamdan sat at the defense table, wearing a white skullcap and a a headset for translation into his native Arabic, wearing a white gown and a scarf draped across his shoulders. Under the US Military Commissions Act of 2006, it takes a two-thirds majority — or four of the six officers on the jury panel — to convict.
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