Chauffeur Verdict In
Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald has the story, Guantanamo jury gives mixed verdict on Bin Laden’s driver
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — A U.S. military jury on Wednesday convicted Osama bin Laden’s driver of providing material support for terror but found him not guilty of a more serious charge of conspiring with al Qaeda in a string of worldwide terror attacks.
Salim Hamdan, 37, stood and listened with head bowed to an Arabic translation as he became the first man convicted at trial in the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War II.
He said nothing but wiped his eyes with his head scarf.
Six senior military officers, led by a Navy captain, deliberated for a little more than eight hours across three days to announce the verdict at 10:16 a.m.
…
The Pentagon’s deputy defense counsel, Mike Berrigan, called the conviction “a travesty.” He noted that when Hamdan was first charged, in 2004, before his lawyers challenged his case in the U.S. Supreme Court, there was no such war crime as “providing material support for terror.”
This can be appealed and it won’t stand review. As Mr. Berrigan notes, this is an ex post facto situation, i.e. you can’t make something illegal after the fact, and then convict someone of doing it. Hamdan has to be tried under the laws that existed when he was taken into custody.
I would note that they couldn’t make the case for serious charges, even to a military jury, and this was supposed to be one of their strongest cases. “True Believers” aren’t worth spit as lawyers.
2 comments
Well, there’s also the fact that you need, like, evidence to convict a taxi driver of anything other than, well, driving a taxi, and while prosecutors love to boast about how they can convict a ham sandwich of murder, the reality is that you need at least something to base a conviction on besides the statement of the prosecutor that “he’s guilty!”. In the end the jury of military officers convicted him only of doing the thing which he and everybody else already admitted he did — drive Osama’s taxi.
Next up: the war crimes trials of Osama bin Laden’s barber, his tailor, the guy who sold Osama some kebabs one time, … what an effin’ travesty.
– Badtux the Disgusted Penguin
As I said at your place, they have the barber and travel agent in custody [really!], so their trials are coming.
Under the law they are using, there are certain places in the US where Muslim charities are part of the United Way campaign, so entire city, state, and Federal offices can be charged.
I’m waiting to see the seal for the Department of Homeland Security’s Snark and Snipe Hunting Agency.