Osama bin Laden’s former driver was convicted on one charge and acquitted on another Wednesday, handing the Bush administration a partial victory in the first U.S. war crimes trial in a half-century but failing to settle the debate over whether the proceeding was just.
A six-member military jury found Salim Ahmed Hamdan guilty of supporting al-Qaeda by driving and guarding the terrorist leader. The jurors found him not guilty of conspiring with bin Laden in terrorist attacks. The same uniformed jurors will hold another hearing Wednesday afternoon to determine a sentence.
With the conclusion of the trial — the first by military commission since the end of World War II — prosecutors can now move ahead with military trials forup to 80 Guantanamo detainees, including the accused planners of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Testing the system on Hamdan, by most accounts a low-level al-Qaeda foot soldier, was one reason for trying him first.
Although the partial acquittal surprised some courtroom observers, the effect is virtually the same as a full conviction: Hamdan still faces up to life in prison. And the administration can use the acquittal to defend its military justice system against accusations that it was politicized and drawn up to ensure convictions. Pentagon and White House officials said they were satisfied with the result.
“We’re pleased that Salim Hamdan received a fair trial,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. “The military commission system is a fair and appropriate legal process for prosecuting detainees alleged to have committed crimes against the United States or our interests. We look forward to other cases moving forward to trial.”
The jurors deliberated for about eight hours over three days. The Yemeni father of two held his head down and wiped his eyes with his white headdress as the verdict was read in a courtroom dotted with the insignias of each branch of the U.S. armed forces. Shielded by his attorneys, Hamdan remained seated after jurors left the courtroom, blinking rapidly.
“This is an emotional moment for Mr. Hamdan,” said the military judge, Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred.
At some point on Wednesday, Hamdan will be led back to his cell at the U.S. detention facility here, his home for the past six years. It is unclear where he will serve any sentence.
Hamdan was convicted of material support of terrorism but acquitted of conspiracy. A two-thirds vote — four of the six jurors — was required for the conviction, but the jury’s exact vote was not released. Prosecutors declined a request to interview the panel members.
The broadly worded material-support charge had always been easier for prosecutors because it required them to prove that Hamdan “knew or intended” that his support was to be used for a terrorist act. Numerous federal agents testified that Hamdan knew about attacks, if only after the fact, yet still stayed with bin Laden.
The conspiracy charge was more difficult because it required proof that Hamdan agreed to support terrorist acts — a specific intent — instead of just knowing about them.
The sentencing hearing will start at 2 p.m. Eastern time and is expected to last for the rest of the day Wednesday. Prosecutors are expected to present “aggravating factors” they say call for a harsh punishment, while defense attorneys introduce evidence of mitigation. The same two-thirds vote applies to sentencing, unless the term is more than 10 years. That would require the vote of three-fourths of the jurors.
The verdict only intensified a dispute over whether Hamdan’s conviction was preordained in an unfair system — or whether military trials are appropriate for people who allegedly committed heinous acts against the United States.
President Bush first empowered the modern military commissions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, reversing a decade-long U.S. policy of trying accused terrorists in civilian courts.
“This is not a day the administration should glory in. It’s a day that America should be ashamed of,” deputy chief defense counsel Michael Berrigan said after testimony ended in the two-week trial. “Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, this process will go away and we’ll have real trials.”
Ben Wizner, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who attended the trial as one of several human rights observers, ridiculed the administration for inaugurating the military system on “a marginal figure.”
Even the prosecution’s own evidence portrayed Hamdan as someone who ferried weapons for al-Qaeda and knew details of terrorist attacks, but only after they occurred and often based on conversations he overheard. One FBI agent testified that Hamdan emerged from training at an al-Qaeda camp and said he had no interest in fighting.
“We were told that Guantanamo was necessary because these were the world’s most dangerous terrorists,” said Wizner, who criticized the Pentagon for revealing little in the trial about U.S. interrogation techniques. “Salim Hamdan is not one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.”
Prosecutors had no immediate comment on Wednesday’s verdict. But Col. Lawrence Morris, the military commissions’ chief prosecutor, said after testimony ended that the trial “has worked as well as anybody could have asked. It has been an open and fair and thorough process.”
David Rivkin, a Justice Department official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations said the trial “went extremely well.” He said Hamdan, who has a fourth-grade education, “may be the dumbest chip off the block, but the fact is he was driving bin Laden, he was involved in al-Qaeda activities. He didn’t have to be a mastermind.”
The military commission was unlike any trial the United States has seen in decades. Yet supporters and opponents agreed that Allred tried his best to be fair within rules that favored the government.
Running the proceedings with a brisk efficiency, Allred declared that basic constitutional rights didn’t apply to Hamdan, who likely would have remained imprisoned even if acquitted because the military has separately designated him an “enemy combatant.” The pool of 13 jurors was chosen by a Pentagon official but then reduced to six through the customary questioning by both sides known as voir dire.
Prosecutors called 14 witnesses, mostly federal agents who testified about admissions Hamdan made during interrogations that he drove bin Laden, guarded him and was so close to the al-Qaeda leader that bin Laden told him whom to marry. The statements were admitted into evidence even though Hamdan had not been warned they might be used against him.
Yet Allred also issued a key ruling against prosecutors, throwing out additional statements from Hamdan deemed “highly coercive.” The rules had allowed, in certain circumstances, for evidence obtained under interrogation methods that were “cruel” and “inhuman.”
Legal observers said the decision could put the government at a disadvantage in future military trials of al-Qaeda leaders subjected to far more coercive conditions, such as “waterboarding,” a form of simulated drowning.
“Even though the Justice Department hated it, that ruling probably did as much to inspire confidence in the system as anything that could have happened,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University and a former Justice official.
Defense lawyers called eight witnesses and portrayed Hamdan as a salaried chauffeur with no involvement in terrorism. Two defense witnesses testified entirely in secret, which is exceedingly rare in civilian courts but far more common in the military justice system. Some secret evidence was also submitted and parts of a key judge’s ruling were redacted — as is common in high-profile terror trials in federal court.
Hamdan’s conviction will be automatically reviewed by a Pentagon official and then appealed to a military appellate court. His attorneys could then appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District and ultimately the Supreme Court.
Source: Washington Post.com