I have mixed feelings on this.
The Story Bin Laden’s Former Driver Found Guilty in Split Decision (Via NYTimes.com)
A panel of six military officers convicted a former driver for Osama bin Laden of a war crime Wednesday, completing the first military commission trial here and the first conducted by the United States since the end of World War II.
But the commission acquitted the former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, of a conspiracy charge, arguably the more serious of two charges he faced. His conviction came on a separate but lesser charge of providing material support for terrorism.
Mr. Hamdan, who has said he is about 40, faces a possible life term. The sentence is to be set in a separate proceeding before the same panel that is to begin this afternoon. As the verdict was read, Mr. Hamdan, who has been in custody since he was detained in Afghanistan in November of 2001, stood passively at the defense table in a white headscarf, his head bent slightly down.
The conviction of Mr. Hamdan, a Yemeni who was part of a select group of drivers and bodyguards for Mr. bin Laden until 2001, was a long-sought, if somewhat qualified, victory for the Bush administration, which has been working to begin military commission trials at the isolated naval base here for nearly seven years.
At first thought, One would think “Great! One of the terrorists was convicted.” However upon closer inspection, one sees the following:
Mr. Hamdan was convicted by a panel of six senior military officers who, according to an order of the military judge, could not be publicly identified. The panel deliberated for eight hours over three days. As permitted under the law Congress passed for trials here in 2006, the trial included secret evidence and testimony in a closed courtroom.
Critics have long claimed that the military commission system here does not meet American standards of fundamental justice, in part because the Military Commissions Law allows hearsay evidence and evidence derived through coercive interrogation methods. The public is not allowed in the courtroom, and legal documents are often never released.
After closing arguments Monday, Charles D. Swift, a former Navy lawyer who has represented Mr. Hamdan for years, said the two-week proceeding here had been a trial that did not follow the American rule of law and that the defense believed American courts would eventually correct the legal errors here. Mr. Swift called the military commission “a made-up tribunal to try anybody we don’t like.”
My question is not if this man deserved to be tried or not, it is HOW he was tried. This whole argument of “He is not a United States citizen, he does not have the right that citizens of the United States possess”, does not wash with me. I am sorry, but we treated Japanese prisoners better than we treat these people.
I just wonder, how long it will be, before our own Government will start treating its own citizens like barbaric animals? If we allow this sort of unconstitutional nonsense to continue, it could be sooner than you think. Could you imagine the horror of being subjected to this sort of a trial? All for insulting a Islamic person or their supposed “Holy Koran”?
Or if someone like me, a protestant, for insulting a roman catholic? It could happen, and believe me, the Roman Catholic Church would be most pleased, after all, they did torture my Baptist forefathers.
I simply give you my opinion. You decide what to do with it.
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