08 August 2008
First Trial of Guantanamo Detainee Ends with Conviction, August 07, 2008(Salim Hamdan received a “fair trial,” White House says)
Washington -- Al-Qaida member Salim Hamdan was sentenced to five and a half years in prison after a military commission found him guilty August 6 on five of eight charges of providing material support to terrorism. The court proceeding at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II.
White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto said August 6 that Hamdan had “received a fair trial,” after U.S. authorities presented their case against him, and that the government “bore the burden of proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In his statement, Fratto said Hamdan had been presumed innocent until he was found guilty and described the military commission system as “a fair and appropriate legal process for prosecuting detainees alleged to have committed crimes against the United States or our interests,” adding, “We look forward to other cases moving forward to trial.”
According to an August 6 statement by the Defense Department, along with being cleared on three of the eight counts of providing material support for terrorism, Hamdan also was found not guilty on the charge of conspiracy to commit terrorism.
Hamdan faced a maximum sentence of life in prison, the Defense Department said. However, his jury of six U.S. military officers sentenced him to five and a half years on August 7. Media reports indicated that, with time already served, he could be eligible for release in five months, but still could remain at Guantanamo Bay as an “enemy combatant.”
The Defense Department statement said Hamdan’s case next will be reviewed by the military court’s Convening Authority to evaluate the “legal sufficiency” of the court’s findings and to review the appropriateness of the sentence.
“Hamdan will still be represented by counsel and have the opportunity to submit matters for consideration on his behalf. Then his case will receive an automatic review by the Court of Military Commission Review. Thereafter, he could appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court,” the Defense Department said.
The capture of a large number of nonuniformed combatants who were engaged in armed hostilities and terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries has posed a thorny set of legal problems. The United States, drawing on both domestic and international military law, has used the military commission process to protect the rights of the accused and afford them fair trials.
On June 12, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of those detained at Guantanamo to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. (See “Guantanamo Detainees Win Right to Challenge Their Detention.”)
According to the Defense Department, military commissions are “constituted courts, affording all the necessary judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples for purposes of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.”
The full text of the Defense Department statement is available on the department’s Web site.
For more information, the Defense Department’s Military Commission Web site also has the list of charges that were brought against Hamdan.
