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Salim Ahmed Hamdan	Salim Ahmed Hamdan	al-Qaeda	Home Front: WoT	Yemeni	In Jug		20050724
		former Osama bin Laden driver, confined at Gitmo

Home Front: WoT

US appeals court tosses Hamdan conviction

2012-10-17

WASHINGTON: A US appeals court on Tuesday threw out the conviction of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama Bin Laden who served a prison term for material support for terrorism. In a 3-0 ruling, the appeals court said that material support for terrorism was not an international-law war crime at the time Hamdan engaged in the activity for which he was convicted. Since when does a US appeals court rule on international law? Hamdan was sentenced to 5 1/2 years, given credit for time served and is back home in Yemen, reportedly working as a taxi driver. “If the government wanted to charge Hamdan with aiding and abetting terrorism or some other war crime that was sufficiently rooted in the international law of war at the time of Hamdan’s conduct, it should have done so,” wrote Judge Brett Kavanaugh. All three judges on the case were appointed by Republican presidents. The war crime for which Hamdan was convicted was specified in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. “The government suggests that at the time of Hamdan’s conduct from 1996 to 2001, material support for terrorism violated the law of war referenced” in US law, said Kavanaugh, but “we conclude otherwise.” To date, the cases against seven prisoners under the military commission system in place at Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba have involved material support for terrorism. In five of the cases, those charged pleaded guilty. Hamdan went to trial, as did Ali Hamza Al-Bahlul, who helped Al-Qaeda produce propaganda and handled media relations for Bin Laden. Bahlul was convicted in November 2008 of multiple counts of conspiracy, solicitation to commit murder and providing material support for terrorism, and is serving a life sentence at Guantanamo. “It is highly likely that the result of this decision in Hamdan will be to vacate the convictions of Bahlul,” said Hofstra University constitutional law professor Eric M. Freedman. “Even the conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder counts are very probably headed toward reversal.” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the department is reviewing the ruling. In 2006, Hamdan’s lawyers successfully challenged the system of military commissions set up by President George W. Bush. That resulted in congressional enactment of the Military Commissions Act under which Hamdan was eventually tried. A six-member military jury in 2008 cleared Hamdan of conspiracy while finding him guilty of material support for terrorism. The Center for Constitutional Rights, a private group A hard left, progressive group with funding from all the 'proper' places, and which is waging law against the Constitution and our country in hopes of bringing it down, not that the MSM will ever tell you that... which has been deeply involved in detainee issues, praised Tuesday’s decision but said it does not go far enough. The center says detainees at Guantanamo Bay are civilians under the laws of war and must be charged under domestic laws or released, rather than being tried under a system of military commissions. Just simple civilians. Heavily armed, simple civilians... Raha Wala, a lawyer for Human Rights First, Op cit... said the case has repercussions for “every other flawed military commissions case like it. It’s a basic rule of law principle that a defendant can’t be prosecuted for acts that were not criminal at the time they were committed.” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Zachary Katznelson said the decision “strikes the biggest blow yet against the legitimacy of the Guantanamo military commissions, which have for years now been trying people for a supposed war crime that in fact is not a war crime at all.” Hamdan met Bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1996 and began working on his farm before winning a promotion as his driver. Defense lawyers say he only kept the job for the $200-a-month salary. But prosecutors alleged he was a personal driver and bodyguard of the Al-Qaeda leader. They say he transported weapons for the Taleban and helped Bin Laden escape US retribution following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001. I wouldn't care if Hamdan was Binny's latrine digger. He couldn't be that close to Binny and not be part and parcel of the whole al-Qaeda operation.

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Arabia

Former Bin Laden Driver Hamdan to Leave Guantanamo Bay for Yemen

2008-11-26

The U.S. military has decided to transfer Osama bin Laden's former driver from custody at Guantanamo Bay to his home in Yemen, ending the seven-year saga of a man the Bush administration considered a dangerous terrorist but whom a military jury found to be a low-level aide. Salim Ahmed Hamdan is expected to arrive within 48 hours in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, where he will serve out the rest of his military commission sentence, which is set to expire Dec. 27, two government officials said. The Pentagon's decision to send Hamdan home narrowly avoids what could have been a sticky diplomatic situation, as Bush administration officials had long contended they could hold Hamdan indefinitely. It also prevents President-elect Barack Obama from having to decide Hamdan's fate early in his term. Obama has said he wants to close the U.S. military prison in Cuba. Hamdan's attorneys were poised to fight the assertion that their client could be held indefinitely, a case that probably would have brought Hamdan back to the Supreme Court to challenge his detention. Instead, he will serve out the remaining month of his sentence in a Yemeni prison before being released to his wife and two young children, one of whom has never met him. Hamdan is about 40. "Legally, we absolutely have a right to hold enemy combatants, but politically is he the guy we want to fight all the way to the Supreme Court about?" said a defense official familiar with the release negotiations. "I think we came to the conclusion that, no, he wasn't. This is a win for everyone." A senior diplomatic official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Hamdan had not yet arrived in Yemen said last night that the conditions of Hamdan's release are that Yemen will hold him until Dec. 27 and will then let him go and continue to mitigate any threat he might pose to the United States and its allies, a standard part of U.S. agreements with countries calling for the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees. Military prosecutors and Hamdan's attorneys said yesterday that they could not confirm his impending release. It is standard Defense Department policy not to discuss detainee transfers until they are completed because of operational security, said Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. "Hearing that [Hamdan] may be returned in the near future doesn't surprise me," said Michael Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel at the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions. "That's the wise thing to do. But I can't confirm it."

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Home Front: WoT

Detainee's Time Served Is Challenged

2008-10-19

The Bush administration is seeking to recall a military jury that gave a light sentence to Osama bin Laden's driver in one of the first trials at Guantanamo Bay, arguing that the judge improperly credited the defendant for time he had already spent in the detention facility. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 40-year-old Yemeni captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, was sentenced in August to 66 months for providing material support to terrorism. The judge, Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, credited the defendant with 61 months and eight days for time he had been detained at the U.S. military prison in Cuba, leaving Hamdan with an effective sentence of 142 days. Prosecutors had sought a 30-year term. The government argues that Hamdan was not entitled to any credit for his pretrial detention because he was not held at Guantanamo Bay "in connection with the charges for which he was tried, but was independently detained under the law of armed conflict as an enemy combatant," according to motions filed with the military court and released this week. According to military prosecutors, that distinction also allows the government to hold any detainee even after he has been tried, convicted, sentenced and has served his time. The government said in court papers that prosecution for violations of the laws of war is an "incidental fact" to a detainee's "wartime detention as an enemy combatant." The August decision by the jury of six officers also left the Bush administration with a looming dilemma: either release a man it insists is still dangerous on Dec. 31, or risk a further backlash against the controversial war trials system in Guantanamo Bay by continuing to hold him on the grounds that he remains an enemy combatant. The government said the judge erred in awarding credit, a decision Allred communicated to the jury when its members queried him. The defense insists the issue of credit was agreed upon at trial, when prosecutors expected a long sentence. But the government said it entered a standing objection before the judge briefed the jury.

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Terror Networks

Former driver: Bin Laden 'happy about the results' of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks

2008-07-24

(Xinhua) -- Osama bin Laden's former driver has heard the al-Qaida leader express satisfaction with the death toll of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the U.S. which was more than his expectation, according to a news report on Wednesday. Citing a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, the Washington Post report said that the arrested driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, told U.S. interrogators at the Guantanamo detention center bin Laden was "happy about the results" of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000, while his expectation on the death toll was "only" 1,000 to 1,500. The agent, Ali Soufan, also told Hamdan's military trial that during an interrogation in 2002, the driver said he had directly witnessed a meeting on Sept. 11, 2001, in Kabul, Afghanistan, between bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, self-claimed mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when the al-Qaida leader praised the 19 suicide hijackers-to-be for "their courage."

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Home Front: WoT

Alleged Al-Qaeda Driver Testifies on Interrogation Tactics

2008-07-16

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the alleged al-Qaeda driver who faces an historic military trial next week, testified Tuesday that a female interrogator elicited information from him using sexually suggestive behavior that was offensive to him. Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, told a military court conducting a pretrial hearing that during questioning in 2002 a woman interrogator "came close to me, she came very close, with her whole body towards me. I couldn't do anything. I was afraid of the soldiers.'' "Did she touch your thigh?," asked Hamdan's lawyer, Charles Swift. "Yes...I said to her 'what do you want?'' Hamdan said. "She said 'I want you to answer all of my questions.''' "Did you answer all of her questions after that?'' Swift asked. Hamdan said he did. Hamdan's lawyers are seeking to convince a judge to throw out incriminating statements Hamdan allegedly gave to interrogators at the military prison here, arguing that they were obtained through coercive interrogation tactics. His trial, scheduled for Monday, would be the first military commission conducted by the United States in more than half a century.

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Home Front: WoT

Guantánamo drives prisoners insane, lawyers say

2008-04-27

Next month, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was once a driver for Osama bin Laden, could become the first detainee to be tried for war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. By now, he should be busily working on his defense. But his lawyers say he cannot. They say Hamdan, already the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, has essentially been driven insane by solitary confinement in a tiny cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo "boil his mind." "He will shout at us," said his military defense lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer. "He will bang his fists on the table." His lawyers have asked a military judge to stop his case until Hamdan is placed in less restrictive conditions at Guantánamo, saying he cannot get a fair trial if he cannot focus on defending himself. The judge is to hear arguments as soon as Monday on whether he has the power to consider the claim. Next we'll hear that he's an orphan ... Critics have long asserted that Guantánamo's climate-controlled isolation is a breeding ground for insanity. But turning that into a legal claim marks a new stage for the military commissions at Guantánamo. As military prosecutors push to get trials under way, they are being met with challenges not just to the charges, but to Guantánamo itself. The defense teams are putting up whatever they can because they're pretty certain how the tribunals will turn out. This is their only real chance to derail the process, because the Supreme Court isn't going to overturn a settled tribunal verdict. Conditions are more isolating than many death rows and maximum-security prisons in the United States, said Jules Lobel, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who is an expert on U.S. prison conditions. That's because these guys aren't death row prisoners, they're illegal combatants taken on a field of battle. The defense teams keep trying to get us to believe that this is just another civilian criminal matter. Pentagon officials say that Guantánamo holds dangerous men humanely and that there is no unusual quantity of mental illness there. Guantánamo, a military spokeswoman said, does not have solitary confinement, only "single-occupancy cells." In response to questions, Commander Pauline Storum, the spokeswoman for Guantánamo, asserted that detainees were much healthier psychologically than the population in U.S. prisons. Storum said about 10 percent could be found mentally ill, compared, she said, with data showing that more than half of inmates in U.S. correctional institutions had mental health problems. Most of whom had their mental problems prior to getting into prison. With their filings, Hamdan's lawyers are setting the stage for similar challenges to the procedures of Guantánamo in some 80 expected war crimes cases, lawyers for other detainees say. "The issue of mistreatment of prisoners, the miserable lives they live in these cells, will come up in every case," said Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer for 35 detainees. Other than being in a single cell, it's hard to imagine how they're being 'mistreated'. They're fed well, housed well, get privileges based on their cooperation and exercise. They have the Red Cross looking in on them. Someone will have to explain how they could be abused.

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Home Front: WoT

Bin Laden's driver to receive POW review

2007-12-20

A US military judge agreed to decide whether Osama bin Laden’s driver is a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions, a designation that could prevent the United States from trying him in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals. The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said in a ruling on Monday that he would undertake a POW review for Yemeni prisoner Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who is charged in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. If Hamdan is found to be a POW, he could be tried by court-martial, but not by the special military tribunals the United States set up at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to try non-US citizens on terrorism charges. Such a finding could cast further doubts on the widely criticised and still evolving Guantanamo court system that has yet to see a trial completed. The lone conviction at Guantanamo was the result of a negotiated guilty plea for an Australian now serving a nine-month prison term in his homeland. Defence lawyers said he was a civilian driver and support worker who should be considered a prisoner of war and handled according to the Geneva Conventions outlining the treatment of war captives.

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Home Front: WoT

Gitmo court hears US soldier's testimony

2007-12-06

A driver for Osama bin Laden wore no uniform and was in a car with two surface-to-air missiles when he was captured in Afghanistan, a U.S. Army officer recalled Thursday in a hearing to determine whether the detainee can be prosecuted in a special military court. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who has been held at Guantanamo for nearly six years, was stopped at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 and turned over to U.S. forces, who interrogated him and kept him mostly hooded and restrained for about five days, Army Maj. Hank Smith said at the pretrial hearing. Rest at link.

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Home Front: WoT

How Guantanamo protects civil liberties

2007-06-26

James Taranto, Wall Street Journal Was it wishful thinking? On Thursday the Associated Press reported that, according to sources it did not name, "the Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere." The White House quickly denied the rumor, and, for good measure, on Friday the Pentagon announced that Guantanamo had admitted its first new detainee in months: Haroon al-Afghani, a commander from the al Qaeda-affiliated terror group Hezb-i-Islami. The AP's impatience to write the final chapter of the Guantanamo story is of a piece with the way news organizations generally have told the story. Although the Supreme Court has granted some rights to detainees, it has been remarkably restrained in doing so. But journalists have falsely portrayed Guantanamo as an affront to the Constitution and international law. Perhaps the most striking example was the New York Times's coverage of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which the court decided a year ago this week. "The decision was such a sweeping and categorical defeat for the administration that it left human rights lawyers who have pressed this and other cases on behalf of Guantanamo detainees almost speechless with surprise and delight, using words like 'fantastic,' 'amazing' and 'remarkable,' " correspondent Linda Greenhouse exulted. She opined that there was "no doubt" the ruling represented "a historic event, a defining moment," and likened it to U.S. v. Nixon, the 1974 case in which the court unanimously ordered the president to turn over the Watergate tapes. Nixon resigned 15 days after that decision. A year after Hamdan, it is safe to say that its impact has been rather less dramatic. While the court, by a vote of 5-3, did hand Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's personal driver and bodyguard, a victory on key points, Ms. Greenhouse's purple prose belied the narrow grounds on which it did so. Less than four months after Hamdan, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which effectively undid the ruling. Congress had this power because the Supreme Court has not extended a single constitutional right to alien enemy combatants. Hamdan dealt with two legal questions: whether detainees have the right to challenge their captivity by petitioning a court for a writ of habeas corpus, and whether the military commissions established to try detainees for war crimes passed muster under U.S. and international law. The court had ruled in Rasul v. Bush (2004) that detainees had the right to file habeas petitions. But it rested that conclusion on statutory, not constitutional, grounds--that is, it found that Congress had conferred this right on the detainees. Congress therefore had the authority to take it away, and it did so by passing the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear Guantanamo detainees' habeas petitions. But in Hamdan, the high court held that the 2005 act did not apply retroactively, so that habeas proceedings already under way could continue. The Military Commissions Act removed this ambiguity and ordered a stop to all habeas petitions. An appellate court upheld this provision in February 2007, and in April the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to that ruling. The Justice Department has petitioned for the dismissal of still-pending habeas claims. In overturning the administratively created war-crimes commissions, the Supreme Court found that detainees are entitled to some protections under the Geneva Conventions. It did not afford them the privileges enjoyed by legitimate prisoners of war--those who wear uniforms, carry weapons openly and otherwise comply with the rules of war. Instead, it ruled that they have more-limited rights under Geneva's Common Article 3, which applies to conflicts "not of an international character." This originally meant civil wars, but the court imaginatively reasoned that since al Qaeda is not a nation, its war against America is not "international." Yet the justices granted the detainees only one specific right under Common Article 3: the right to have any criminal charges heard by a "regularly constituted court"--one created by an act of Congress. The high court has not adjudicated the legality of the legislatively created commissions, but it seems unlikely to rule against them. Four justices in the Hamdan majority joined Stephen Breyer's concurrence, which expressly invited Congress to authorize military commissions. To be sure, legal obstacles remain. Earlier this month two military judges dismissed charges against Hamdan and another detainee, on the pedantic ground that administrative tribunals had designated them enemy combatants, not unlawful enemy combatants--notwithstanding that they clearly meet the Military Commissions Act's definition of unlawful combatants. Some politicians have also undertaken efforts on behalf of enemy fighters. Senate Democrats, joined by Republican Arlen Specter, have introduced legislation that would restore habeas rights to Guantanamo detainees, although this is unlikely to become law as long as George W. Bush is president. Colin Powell would go even further. "I would close Guantanamo, not tomorrow, but this afternoon," the former secretary of state told NBC's Tim Russert earlier this month. "I'd get rid of the military commission system and use established procedures in federal law or in the manual for courts-martial." Mr. Powell claimed that "I would not let any of [the detainees] go," but his proposal would inevitably have that effect. Once inside the criminal justice system, detainees would become defendants with full constitutional rights, including the right to be charged or released, the right to exclude tainted evidence, and the right to be freed unless found guilty of a specific crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Legitimate prisoners of war enjoy no such rights. The primary purpose of holding enemy combatants during wartime is not punitive but preventive--to keep them off the battlefield. No one disputes that a country at war can hold POWs without charge for the duration of hostilities. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority in Hamdan, reaffirmed the government's authority to do the same with the unlawful combatants at Guantanamo. By granting constitutional protections to detainees, Mr. Powell's proposal would endanger the lives of American civilians. It would also afford preferential treatment to enemy fighters who defy the rules of war. This would make a mockery of international humanitarian law. In the long run, it could also imperil the civil liberties of Americans. Leniency toward detainees is on the table today only because al Qaeda has so far failed to strike America since 9/11. If it succeeded again, public pressure for harsher measures would be hard for politicians to resist. And if enemy combatants had been transferred to the criminal justice system, those measures would be much more likely to diminish the rights of citizens who have nothing to do with terrorism. By keeping terrorists out of America, Guantanamo protects Americans' physical safety. By keeping them out of our justice system, it also protects our freedom.

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Home Front: WoT

Judges at Guantanamo Throw Out 2 Cases

2007-06-05

Followup from yesterday's article. GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Military judges dismissed charges Monday against a Guantanamo detainee accused of chauffeuring Osama bin Laden and another who allegedly killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, throwing up roadblocks to the Bush administration's attempt to try terror suspects in military courts. In back-to-back arraignments for Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen and Canadian Omar Khadr the U.S. military's cases against the alleged al-Qaida figures dissolved because, the two judges said, the government had failed to establish jurisdiction. They were the only two of the roughly 380 prisoners at Guantanamo charged with crimes, and the rulings stand to complicate efforts by the United States to try other suspected al-Qaida and Taliban figures in military courts. Hamdan's military judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said the detainee is "not subject to this commission" under legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Bush last year. Hamdan is accused of chauffeuring bin Laden's and being the al-Qaida chief's bodyguard. The new Military Commissions Act was written to establish military trials after the U.S. Supreme Court last year - ruling in a case brought by Hamdan - rejected the previous system. The judges agreed that there was one problem they could not resolve - the new legislation says only "unlawful enemy combatants" can be tried by the military trials, known as commissions. But Khadr and Hamdan had previously been identified by military panels only as enemy combatants, lacking the critical "unlawful" designation. This is a minor error, which they did us a service by catching now before the trial started. They'll go back to their word processors and insert "unlawful". The surprise decisions do not spell freedom for the detainees, who are imprisoned here along with the others suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Legal experts said Brownback apparently left open the door for a retrial for Khadr, and that the Defense Department can possibly fix the jurisdictional problem by holding new "combat status review tribunals" for any detainee headed to trial. The Military Commissions Act specifically says that only those classified as "unlawful" enemy combatants can face war trials here, Brownback noted. The distinction is important because if they were "lawful," they would be entitled to prisoner of war status, which under the Geneva Conventions would entitle them to the same treatment under established military law that U.S. soldiers would get. A Pentagon spokesman said the issue was little more than semantics. Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon told The Associated Press said the entire Guantanamo system was set up to deal with people who act as "unlawful enemy combatants," operating outside any internationally recognized military, without uniforms, military ranks or other things that make them party to the Geneva Conventions. "It is our belief that the concept was implicit that all the Guantanamo detainees who were designated as 'enemy combatants' ... were in fact unlawful," Gordon said.

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Home Front: WoT

U.S. Charges Suspected bin Laden Driver

2007-05-11

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The United States filed charges of conspiracy and providing support for terrorism Thursday against a Guantanamo detainee accused of working as a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. Salim Ahmed Hamdan is the third Guantanamo detainee to be charged under a new set of rules signed last year by President Bush after the Supreme Court rejected the previous system. Hamdan, who is from Yemen, has been detained at Guantanamo since May 2002. It was his legal challenge that forced the Bush administration and Congress to draft new rules for the military trials, known as commissions, for the men held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in eastern Cuba. In the charging documents, the military said Hamdan conspired with bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. In addition to working as bin Laden's driver and bodyguard, the U.S. said Hamdan transported and delivered weapons to al-Qaida and its associates and trained at terrorist camps.

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Home Front: WoT

Supreme Court declines to enter fray on detainee trials

2007-05-01

The US Supreme Court has helped clear the way for the next round of special trials by military commissions at the terror detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. On Monday, the court declined to take up a joint appeal filed by former Osama bin Laden driver Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen and Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, who faces murder charges for allegedly throwing a hand grenade that killed a US soldier in Afghanistan. Mr. Khadr was 15 years old at the time. Following the recent guilty plea by Australian David Hicks, Khadr and Mr. Hamdan are designated as the next detainees slated for commission trials at Guantánamo. Last week, Khadr's case was formally referred to a military commission for trial. While Mr. Hicks's guilty plea technically provided the first conviction under the new military commission process, that process remains largely untested in the crucible of an ongoing trial.

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