[wvns] Bin Laden's driver is not POW, U.S. judge says
Bin Laden's driver is not POW, U.S. judge saysBy Jane Sutton
By Jane Sutton
Thu Dec 20, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN20205631
MIAMI, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver is not a prisoner
of war as defined by the Geneva Conventions and can be tried by a
Guantanamo war crimes tribunal, a U.S. military judge ruled in a
decision made public on Thursday. The judge said Yemeni prisoner
Salim Ahmed Hamdan is an "unlawful enemy combatant" under the law
passed by Congress last year to provide a legal basis to try non-
Americans on terrorism charges in a special war crimes court at the
U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Lawyers for Hamdan, who acknowledge he earned $200 a month driving
and guarding the al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, said he was a
civilian support worker who should be considered a prisoner of war
deserving of the safeguards outlined in the Geneva Conventions that
govern the treatment of war captives. POWs can be tried by court-
martial but not in ad hoc tribunals such as those still evolving at
Guantanamo. Deeming Hamdan a POW would have raised questions about
the status of many of the other 285 men held at the Guantanamo prison
camp, most for more than five years. Only about five of the prisoners
have been charged under the revised Guantanamo tribunal system
created in 2006, including a Saudi charged on Thursday with plotting
with al Qaeda to blow up a ship. The ruling by the military judge,
Navy Capt. Keith Allred, clears the way for Hamdan's trial in the
Guantanamo war court, where he faces life in prison if convicted of
conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. It will be
the third attempt to try him after earlier charges were thrown out by
the U.S. Supreme Court and Allred. The widely criticized Guantanamo
court has yet to see a trial completed. The lone conviction came in a
negotiated guilty plea for an Australian now nearing the end of a
nine-month prison term in his homeland. The Bush administration has
long argued that the alleged al Qaeda and Taliban operatives at
Guantanamo are not POWs because they are not members of the uniformed
army of any nation.
CAPTURED NEAR KANDAHAR Allred said Hamdan's lawyers had shown no
evidence he was part of any army, militia or volunteer group
granted "lawful combatant" status under the Geneva treaties, or that
he played a support role for any such group. He said U.S. military
and federal agents had shown credible evidence Hamdan
enthusiastically worked for bin Laden after learning he directed the
bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa and other attacks, and that he
drove the al Qaeda leader to help him elude capture after the Sept.
11 attacks. Hamdan was captured near Kandahar in Afghanistan on Nov.
24, 2001. Prosecutors said he was driving toward a battlefield in a
car carrying two anti-aircraft missiles without the firing
mechanisms. The judge said that showed Hamdan was participating in
hostilities against the United States and its allies, since their
aircraft were the only local targets for the missiles. Allred also
rejected an argument that the Guantanamo court's jurisdiction was
retroactively based on a flawed administrative hearing that labeled
Hamdan an enemy combatant three years ago. The judge said his finding
was based on a December hearing he conducted in the presence of
journalists and human rights monitors, in which Hamdan had six
lawyers, called witnesses and confronted those who testified against
him. "The commission concludes, then, that he is an alien unlawful
enemy combatant, and not a lawful combatant entitled to Prisoner of
War protection," Allred wrote.
Hamdan called another Guantanamo captive to testify in his defense
but was refused permission to call others, including Sept. 11
mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on his behalf. (Editing by
Patricia Zengerle)
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