OSAMA bin Laden's former driver has been convicted of supporting terrorism in the first war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay.
A Pentagon-selected military jury deliberated for about eight hours over three days before returning the verdict yesterday.
Salim Hamdan held his head in his hands and wept when a navy captain on the jury read the decision. Hamdan, who is from Yem
en, faces life behind bars.
Tony Fratto, the deputy White House spokesman, said the conviction means prosecutors will proceed with 19 other cases.
"We look forward to other cases moving forward to trial," he said.
The five-man, one-woman jury in the courtroom on the US base in south-eastern Cuba convicted Hamdan on five charges of supporting terrorism and found him not guilty on three others. He was cleared of two charges of conspiracy.
Jurors accepted the prosecution argument that Hamdan aided terrorism by serving as bin Laden's armed bodyguard and driver in Afghanistan while knowing that his employer was plotting attacks against the US.
Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 and taken to Guantanamo Bay in May 2002. His trial, delayed by years of legal challenges that reached the supreme court, was the first demonstration of the Bush administration's system for prosecuting alleged terrorists.
The military accused him of transporting missiles for al-Qaeda and helping bin Laden escape US retribution following the attacks of 11 September, 2001 by serving as his driver in Afghanistan. Defence lawyers said he was a low-level bin Laden employeewith a fourth-grade education.
Hamdan's lawyers said the judge allowed evidence that would not have been admitted by any civilian or military court in the United States, and that interrogations at the centre of the government's case were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement. But the Bush administration called the verdict fair.
The war crimes trial – the first held by the US since the Second World War – differed from the courts martial used to prosecute US troops in Iraq or Vietnam.
Hamdan did not have all the rights normally accorded by a US court, including a jury of his peers, and the judge allowed secret testimony and hearsay evidence.
The verdict will be automatically sent to a special military appeals court in Washington.
Hamdan can also appeal in US civilian courts.
The full article contains 402 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
