OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Average: Select ratingPoorOkayGoodGreatAwesome

Your rating: None Average: 3 (2 votes)

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 8 (OneWorld) - Human rights groups are condemning Wednesday's conviction of Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, calling his military trial at Guantanamo Bay "flawed," "a betrayal of American values," and contrary to international law.

Hamdan, the first detainee brought the trial under the Military Commissions Act, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison Thursday, a day after a jury of six U.S. military officers convicted him of "providing material support for terrorism." The panel acquitted Hamdan of the more serious charge of conspiring with bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda operatives to carry out the Sep. 11 attacks, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

"Nowhere else in the U.S. justice system can someone be held for life regardless of whether he is convicted or acquitted of a crime."
- Ben Wizner, ACLUSince Hamdan has already been in U.S. military custody for over five years, the judge, Naval Captain Keith Allred, ruled his sentence should end in just six months. Pentagon officials have said, however, that despite the verdict and sentence, Hamdan will remain in indefinite detention as an "enemy combatant" and as such will not be released anytime soon.

"In the strange world of Guantanamo justice, even if Hamdan had been acquitted on all charges, he would have been detained indefinitely," the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) National Security Project staff attorney Ben Wizner said in a statement.

Wizner, who observed the trial first hand, added: "Nowhere else in the U.S. justice system can someone be held for life regardless of whether he is convicted or acquitted of a crime."

The verdict, he said, "represents nothing more than an illusion of justice. It is time to shut down these commissions and put an end to this shameful chapter in American history."

U.S. soldier watches over prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. © Amnesty International USA / U.S. Dept of Defense In separate statements, the ACLU, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch all reiterated their desire to see the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay shut down with trials of terrorism suspects moved to U.S. soil where defendants could be tried in either regular civilian or military courts. Trials conducted under the Military Commisions Act, they note, are very different from ordinary civilian and military hearings in the United States.

"For example," Matthew Pollard of Amnesty International said, "statements that were obtained through coercion can be used in the military commissions, including some obtained through cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and perhaps even conduct considered under international law to amount to torture."

"Evidence is also admitted in these proceedings even from periods during which the person was denied access to counsel for weeks or months at a time and was not advised of their right to remain silent," Pollard added. Hearsay evidence is also admissible in military commissions proceedings in circumstances that would be prohibited in ordinary criminal or military courts in the United States.

In addition, unlike a civilian trial where a unanimous vote of guilty by a jury is required, only two thirds of the commission members must agree to a vote of "guilty" in order to convict.

Other human rights organizations argued Hamdan should not have been tried for war crimes at all.

"After World War II, we reserved prosecutions for key people at the top who had been involved in executing war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as people who truly did evil," said Kevin Langen, Director of the Law and Security Program at Human Rights First.

Langen noted that as Osama bin Laden's driver, Hamdan was a relatively inconsequential player in the al-Qaeda organization. After World War II, he noted, Adolf Hitler's driver was never put in the dock.

At Nuremberg, Langen said, "we might have tried a concentration camp guard who was personally responsible for the killing of many innocent civilians, but we would never have charged a cook or a driver employed at a concentration camp -- if he wasn't personally involved in violent, criminal conduct."

Bush Administration officials say now that Hamdan's trial is over, they'd like to push to try more senior al-Qaeda members under the Military Commissions Act. But changes are likely as soon as George W. Bush's term in office is over.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has said he would close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo and move the detainees there to a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Under a McCain administration, the highly criticized Military Commissions Act would still be used, but detainees would be given slightly more rights because their trials would take place on U.S. soil.

As a senator, Democrat Barack Obama voted against the Military Commissions Act, and has said he would close Guantanamo if elected president. He has been less clear, however, about what he would do with the detainees currently incarerated on the island prison.

Average: Select ratingPoorOkayGoodGreatAwesome

Your rating: None Average: 3 (2 votes)