At Guantanamo, Osama Bin Laden’s Old Chauffeur Was Found Guilty

The first trial before a U.S. war crimes tribunal since the Second World War concluded Wednesday, August 6, at Guantanamo Bay, with a guilty verdict. The Yemenite Salim Ahmed Hamdan, old chauffeur of Osama Bin Laden, was found guilty by a jury of six officers, five men and one woman, of half of the charges of which he was accused. The sentence will be decided on another occasion. Declared an “enemy combatant,” he would not have been freed, anyway, even if he had been acquitted.

The jurors declared Salim Hamdan guilty of having “provided material support for terrorism.” They were not convinced by the defense’s argument that Hamdan was only one of the seven chauffeurs and that one of his co-detainees, Abdullah Tabarak, had been allowed to be sent back to Morocco in 2004, even though he was the head of Bin Laden’s conductors and bodyguards. But the defense was forced to admit that Hamdan had pledged allegiance to the leader of Al-Qaeda.

However, the jurors did not follow the prosecutor in the accusation of “conspiracy,” or association of criminals to bring about terrorist activities. He was acquitted of these charges. Four votes out of six were necessary, in a vote by secret ballot, to pronounce a guilty verdict.

The trial was also that of the military commissions, the system put in place by the Bush administration and the Congress in order to judge detainees outside American territory. Numerous human rights organizations and thirty journalists were allowed to attend the hearings. At the last minute, it came to light that the judge hadn’t provided the defense with the correct definition of “war crimes” in the case of an “enemy combatant,” but the parties decided to go ahead nonetheless.

In the course of the hearings, it was implied on numerous occasions that not all information pertaining to the interrogations of the accused was being brought to light. Two intelligence services officers testified behind closed doors. Hamdan’s military attorney, Commander Mizer, made known the mention, during these secret depositions, of “a significant offer of cooperation” made by the detainee at the end of 2001. “You know what Mr. Hamdan had agreed to do,” he reminded the jurors, “and you know how we squandered that opportunity.” According to the Washington Post, Hamdan had offered to help find Bin Laden.

The government recognized that in 2003, at the height of the interrogations, Hamdan had been woken up every hour over the course of 50 days. The FBI, which interrogated him during the day, trying to get him to confide in them, ignored the fact that “another agency” interrogated him at night, with other methods. “Nothing surprises me these days,” remarked agent Gorge Crouch, a witness for the prosecution, who was one of the daytime interrogators. “Another agency” must mean the CIA , but the judge forbade that this name be mentioned in the room, according to Julia Hall, the observer from Human Rights Watch.

The White House congratulated itself that Salim Hamdan had a “fair” trial. The process reinforced President Bush’s conviction that the military commission system is “fair and appropriate,” explained spokesman Tony Fratto. Americans—a majority of 71%—are also of the opinion that criminal justice should not apply to foreigners suspected of terrorism, according to a July 24 Rasmussen poll; 59% are against closing Guantanamo.

Human rights defense organizations have criticized a procedure that takes into account statements obtained “by coercion” and admits “hearsay” accusations without making accusers testify before the Court. “Let’s be serious,” said Neal Katyal, the law professor who pleaded for Hamdan before the Supreme Court. “We’re not going to win the ‘war on terror’ by taking a simple driver and prosecuting him seven years later.” The defense has two possible recourses: before military justice and before the Federal Appeals Court of the District of Columbia, in Washington.